SAILOR MOON HARMONY
EPISODE 10-ONLY IN MEMORY
"Though my love is rare-- though my love is true-"
Her soft singing was laced with somber spirit as it drifted over the short-grassed valley, floating along the evening breeze. The sun's delicate rays just barely skimmed the distant swaying corn stalks, playing off her hair in warm, ruby-like flashes. She swept her hand over the grass as she sang, her bare feet in a playful dance with emerging fireflies.
Water glimmered distantly, drawing Skyler's wistful glare. That clever, unfeeling creek. Sure, it looked innocent enough. She knew better.
Cassie had to look at it every night, but it wouldn't bother her nearly as much. She and Jillian were quite surprised to discover that she didn't actually live in the apartments, her house was actually pretty close to Skyler's. A quiet, elaborately-decorated house sitting atop one of the rolling hills just outside of Galesburg, overlooking a tranquil lake that leaked out into the creek eventually. The house, the property had been sculpted by an artist that had lived there before them. When she blocked out the creek, she did see some kind of rare yet isolated beauty.
"I'm like a bird, I'll only fly away-"
Orion's wingbeats ruffled her hair slightly as he landed next to her. "Don't you ever get tired of that song?"
"I've never heard it before."
Cassie sat down on the porch bench next to Jillian. "So what'd you want to talk about? Did you find anything about the Eclipzes?"
"Yes. My contact came up with some information for us, but their in a bit of a struggle themselves. Something to do with more enemies, but it isn't related to our problems."
"Who's the contact" Cassie questioned, raising an eyebrow. "How do you know they're reliable? How do you know they're not working for an enemy?"
Orion hopped down to the grass, dangerously close to Skyler's feet. The grass was much more comfortable for his thin toes. "You're a little suspicious, aren't you?" he remarked.
"I have my reasons to be."
Orion's eagle smile appeared. "Good. A Scout should be alert. Our contact is Luna, Sailor Moon's guardian."
That captured their attention immediately. "Sailor Moon?" Skyler queried, her once-somber eyes brighting instantly. "Does this Luna say anything about her? What's she like? Who is she?"
"Does she know who we are?" Jillian interjected.
Orion shook his head. "She doesn't know you're here. Luna does though, and I haven't got much information since she's been trying to work on her own problems. There's six Scouts now- oh, by the way, 'senshi' is a soldier."
"Soldier, that's what we always say in that speech" Jillian recalled.
"All those phrases-" Cassie added distantly. "I would never say something like that normally before I start a fight. But they just come out with the transformation. I mean, that fire and the sword? Not my style. Until I got that uniform. This is so weird to me-"
"You think it's weird?" Skyler exclaimed. "How do you think I feel? I almost got killed twice!"
Orion cleared his throat and hopped up onto the porch. "Not to frighten you" he started, calmly, as if to soften the impact of his words. "But Sailor Moon, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, and Venus- they've already been killed once."
"WHAT?!"
The girls' eyes, wide open, were locked on the eagle's. They were closed. "The Scouts of this system gave their lives to save this planet, in a battle that most people never saw. They never had a clue that the world was about to end. From the looks of it, neither did you."
The importance and danger of their mission suddenly seeped in with a chill deeper than any arctic wind. The fate of the world could rest on a group of kids that had no idea what they were doing.
Before the thoughts could settle in any deeper, Cassie's mother poked her head out the door. "Is someone here named Skyler?"
"Yeah?"
"There's a telephone call for you."
As Skyler went to take the call, Jillian and Cassie turned back to Orion, who had apparently been invisible to Cassie's mother. "Mercury? We've never heard of anyone but Sailor Moon" Jillian told him.
"You'll learn more along the way."
"If the world doesn't end" Cassie grumbled. "From what they say in the news, Sailor Moon's just a kid."
Orion fluttered up the the bench. His expression had a tinge of anger. "You have to trust in Sailor Moon. If you only knew-- but I can't tell you. It could severly damage you."
"So could the enemy!" Cassie shot back. "You're giving us more information, I'll admit that, but there's a lot you're hiding. Why?"
Jillian appeared just as flustered, but she kept her tone reserved.. "She's right, Orion. We need to know if we're going to make it."
For the first time, Orion shrunk back. His feathers slicked back in a cringe, his talons gripping the wood floor very tightly. His frightened, cornered appearance only made the two more suspicious. The tense air was interrupted as the door slammed behind Skyler.
"Skyler, do you--?"
Jillian trailed off as she noticed Skyler's pale cheeks, her wide, blank eyes. Her lips trembled softly, her hands gripped onto her t-shirt like a child would to a blanket. She stumbled, then resumed a slow, shaky pace towards her friends. She sat down on the bench, quietly, trying to disguise her shock with a calm air. She slipped one rollerblade on.
"What's up, Sky? You gotta go home? Did something happen?"
She surveyed the group, giving each of them a short, bleary stare. She swallowed hard as she pulled on the other blade and strapped it up, then stood on the edge of the driveway.
"They found him."
~*~*~*~*~
Shadows lingered from the streetlight below, a frozen puzzle engraved in a lonely blue-white glow. The air sifting through the windowscreen carried a cool, dewy scent and the airy music of crickets. Her sheets were inviting, tranquil, but Jillian couldn't catch the faintest strain of sleep. The quiet country air was still too settling for her, but her father insisted that she be in at nine, and there was nothing else to do but sleep. She rested her head on folded hands, staring up at the ceiling.
Poor Skyler. She had always had that light of hope in her eyes, that silver, uplifting hue that had been shattered by the phone call. But she seemed like she had accepted the fact that she wouldn't see her brother alive again. She wasn't very good at hiding her feelings, Jillian guessed.
Orion wasn't in much better shape. He was visibly jolted by the development, and she wondered why. He hadn't known Skyler for that long.
The recollection of Skyler's first meeting with him answered the question. He had been able to save Skyler, but not her brother. That was the problem, that's probably why he was affected like this. She sighed and turned to the wall across the room.
A golden picture frame glimmered from the streetlight. She could just barely make out the frozen faces of her mother and father, pressed close to a tiny version of herself. Lifeless joy. That's all these pictures were. She quickly turned to the opposite wall, pulling a sheet over her. If she only could have been the person in those pictures again. Endless contentment and all sorts of new things to discover, no responsibility, no argument-- innocence. Would she trade it all just to have these things back?
Maybe. But wishing wouldn't bring anything back, and she slapped herself mentally for letting her mind slip into things like that. Still, she couldn't keep out of the memories. She remembered in lucid detail that day, waiting for her mother to come home from work. How she remembered every bit of it was beyond her, but there it was, playing through her mind as if it just happened. She lay contentedly on the living room floor, crafting a long hairband out of smaller, multi-colored loops. A hot project for all the other 8-year-olds, and she was right in it with her friends. She had just learned this weaving technique from her next-door neighbor last night. Her father, still in his tidy gray suit he wore at his own job, rested on the couch behind her, his feet up on the newly-dusted coffee table. The six o'clock news blared on about a 5-year-old circus acrobat who's act had been sabotaged. "That's terrible-" she heard her father mumble.
"Mom's going to yell at you" she teased, lightly whapping his feet with a newspaper nearby.
"Oh, I'll hear her when she coes home" he chuckled, switching the feet. "Unless you're going to tell on me. Are you going to tell on me?"
"Depends if we got any ice cream" Jillian grinned.
"No, young lady. No snacks before dinner. I'd better get started on it, looks like your mom's going to be late."
Seven came and went, and soon so did eight. Her father hadn't sent her to bed yet. He usually insisted that she be in her room, lights out, at 8:00 sharp. She dropped the chilled spoon into the last remants of the melted sherbet, and with the most carefut walk she had ever put on around this time, crept up to her parents' bedroom door to listen to her father's phone conversation.
"Are you sure she didn't come in to the office? That maybe you just didn't see her?" he paused for a moment, his eyes widening slightly. "No, actually- I didn't see her yesterday. Usually the first time I see her is when she gets home from work-" his pace began to quicken and his voice rose. "But she called to tell me should would be late yesterday and I didn't wait for her-"
Jillian edged away from the room, slowly returning to the living room. Her father's alarmed tone resounded through her mind again and again. She didn't have to think about it to figure out that her mother was missing, but she hoped, she strained for something that might say she was just out there somewhere, just fine, everything would be OK, she just couldn't get to a phone.
Just like Skyler.
The rest briefly passed by her closed eyes. The doorbell after ten. The policewoman with that oddly shadowed face. Her father crumbling onto the couch as if he were trying to hide from Jillian. And she couldn't do anything except stare in horror. Daddies didn't cry, that was something she knew.
They didn't cry now. They weren't even sorry.
Her nails were pressed so hard against the mattress she thought they might break. She willed herself to relax, running one hand through her restless, tangled locks. No use dwelling on the past. She'd have to be there for Skyler at the memorial service tomorrow.
~*~*~*~*~
"I'm glad I could meet you tonight."
The screen's light reflected blue off Orion's metallic feathers and glassy eyes, focused on the deep red ones staring back at him. He still found it odd to be talking to a cat. Cats were something he should run from. Well, normal birds- and he wasn't a normal bird. No normal bird would be communicating through an international network from a tiny, isolated computer at the airport.
"You've been catching on quickly" Luna continued. "Have you had any progress with you mission?"
"No sign of the Melody Crystals" Orion replied. He was trying to keep his voice formal, but he couldn't strain out all the frustration in it. So far, he had managed to make Sailor Monoceros and Phoenix suspicious of him, and he didn't have the slightest clue of where to go next with the Crystals.
"You look a little tired" Luna observed.
"Maybe you should check the Polar Network" Artemis called from the background.
"The Polar Network?" Orion exclaimed, his feathers bristling slightly. "It's still online?!"
The cat's spacy blue eyes peered around the edge of the screen. "Yeah, but we can't connect to it from our position. We've got some of our own problems, anyway-"
Orion's gaze dropped to his feet. "Is Sailor Moon handling things well?"
"They all are, but the enemies are appearing more frequently."
"Our Scouts are getting impatient already."
Luna's silky black fur wrinkled. Orion closed one eye halfway. "What?"
"Scout. I still don't understand why you call them that."
The other eyelid dropped. "That's not important right now."
"You're right, I apologize. Just be patient yourself, and eventually they'll follow."
"I'm worried about Sailor Aquila. Sailor Monoceros and Pheonix, they may be impatient, but they know what they have to do. They know how to fight. Aquila, though--" Orion sighed. "It's like she was back then. I wish I could just tell them."
"She shaped up, didn't she back then? She'll eventually get her spirit back. In the meantime, I suggest you do some research on your own enemies. You should be able to get into the Polar Network from your position."
"Is there anything I can do for you?" Orion offered.
"No, unfortunately we seem to be as clueless as you are. I'll try to organize things with the Senshi. I'll send the link to the Network. It should appear when this transmission ends. This is Luna, over and out."
The screen flickered back to the blank desktop, leaving only that tiny crescent moon icon in the corner, and a new one, a violet, multi-pointed star. The Polar Network was something he hadn't heard in a long time- he couldn't figure out how the system would still be up if all the contact points had been destroyed.
Except Earth.
He touched an extended talon to the icon. It twirled to the center of the screen, then flared up with a light that was anything but electronic. He hid his eyes behind one wing, listening to the Network's foreign pulses negotiate with the computer's stubborn codes.
Finally, the noise died down with the light. "Welcome, Guardian Star" a soft woman's voice greeted.
He grinned his eagle grin. The Network was up, and it remembered him! He trotted over to the microphone, which had been carelessly tossed to the corner of the workspace, and dragged it back to the edge of the desk with his beak. "Change profile" he commanded.
It worked quietly. "Please indicate what you wish to change."
"User Name - Orion."
~*~*~*~*~
The heat poured through Skyler's short black dress, lingering in heavy layers under the seemingly thin fabric. Her feet remained motionless above the first rung of the wooden fence, directly under her gaze. They had found Oriole and she couldn't even look at him. No one could. The police said he was barely in one piece. But she couldn't even turn an eye to the tombstone. She hid from the crowd, nearly the whole town. She didn't want them to see her. Not because she didn't want them to see her cry-- she didn't want them to see her not cry. Not a single tear had escaped, not one single emotion tossed her spirit like a willow in a storm. Didn't she care? Didn't she want Oriole back? She knew the answer was yes-- but she felt as empty and heartless as the torn field off to her left. The fence had more warmth than she did.
"Skyler."
A hand rested on her shoulder cautiously, so she wouldn't lose her balance. Jillian and Cassie got up on the fence posts on either side of her, facing the forest. "Your mom and dad are worried about you."
"About what?" Her voice was low, but chillingly still.
"Umm- uh, they don't know where you are."
"Oh. I thought it was something else."
Jillian and Cassie exchanged concerned glances. "Anything you wanna tell us?" Cassie prodded.
"We're listening. It's not good for you to bottle up things" Jillian added.
"That's just it. There's nothing to bottle up. It's like-- like-" Skyler sighed. "It's like I don't even care. I know I do. It's like that me ran away. I don't want to be like this."
Cassie smiled. "Hey, at least you showed up. Orion didn't even bother to get his feathered butt down here."
"He said he had found something important" Jillian explained.
"Shhh-" Cassie warned, pointing to the people nearby.
A tiny girl stood no more than two feet away. The sunlight played magnificently off her periwinkle pigtails. It reminded Cassie of northern Lake Michigan. Her eyes were the same shade, shaped in a playful manner that matched her appearance. Maybe four or five years old. She was a little over half Skyler's size. "You care" the girl insisted, approaching Skyler.
The girl's voice was kind, and spoken with an amazingly mature tone for its high pitch. Skyler dropped off the fence and kneeled by her. "What's your name?"
"Gypsi Chapp. You're his sister. I saw you help him at school. You care."
"At school, huh? I guess you never came to our house."
"Daddy wouldn't let me. He didn't like me playing with the first-graders. He says that 9-year-old kids should stay with people their own age."
The three girls' eyes shot wide open simultaneaously. "YOU'RE 9?!"
Gypsi giggled. The laugh was tiny, yet heartful, and each one touched them like a cool, soothing drop of rain. "Yep. Lookie, don't be mad, but I heard you before. See, you care because if you didn't, you wouldn't be confused."
Jillian beamed. "That's right, Skyler. You wouldn't be talking to us about this stuff if you didn't." she turned a sugary smile to Gypsi. "You're a pretty smart kid."
"That's what Oriole said. But those guys over there, they think I'm stupid. They used to beat up Oriole. Now they come after me. But they're afraid of Skyler. Can you scare them away for me?"
She indicated a group of fourth-graders, resting lazily against the fence a few yards down. "Of course he got blown away, he must've weighed, like two pounds."
"Yep, all of it in his feet-"
The girls saw Skyler's eyes narrow, rage darkening the silver to a stormy gray. Her cheeks touched with a brilliant red, her trembling fists tightening as she stomped over to the boys. Cassie grabbed her arm. "Skyler, wait a minute!"
She jerked it away. The boys got up, lining up right in her path. Despite the fact that she was quite a bit taller than they were and looked like she was about to explode, they didn't even flinch. "What do you want?" one of them demanded.
"Quit talking about my brother like that!"
Her voice was very forceful, but her friends could hear her voice breaking. The boys only gave back muffled giggles. "What are you gonna do about it?"
"It's a free country" another boy piped up.
Skyler had no patience left. She lunged at the first boy that had spoken, tackling him to the ground. The other boys jumped in, followed by several parents who had caught wind of the scuffle. In a few minutes, the group was separated. Skyler's father stormed over. "That's enough!" he roared. "Skyler!"
She was nowhere in sight. Her father glanced around once, then went back to where he was, as did the other parents. Jillian and Cassie scanned the area. "Huh? Where'd she go?"
"Who cares?" the fourth-grader scoffed.
Cassie's eyes gleamed like a sharply cut emerald. "Hey, kid. You wanna start something?"
The kid was about to reply, but he found himself staring just a few inches from the pair threatening green eyes and one steady, ready-to-strike fist. He swallowed hard and back up, then ran off.
"You ever bother Skyler and them again, you'd better be running!" Cassie yelled.
Jillian watched Cassie as she returned. It definetely was the eyes that had scared the kid off, Jillian herself felt a little overpowered by looking at them. "C'mon, we gotta find Skyler-"
~*~*~*~*~
Quiet sobbing led the little girl to where Skyler had hidden. It was quite a ways into the woods, she must have been able to run pretty fast to get to where she was.
'Why were those boys so mean to her?', Gypsi wondered. 'Why are they so mean to everyone?'
She didn't want to debate the mechanics of 10-year-old boys at the moment. Too confusing for her. This girl, Skyler, needed someone to talk to right now. It was so strange - she had the same aura as her brother. Something special, something that made her stand out, like Oriole. At least- Oriole had been special to her.
"Please don't cry" she whimpered, as her own eyes dampened. She had been so worried about what the others felt like that she had forgotten her own feelings for the moment. "Please-"
Skyler glanced up, startling the sky-haired girl. Though Skyler hadn't seen her before, Gypsi knew Skyler well enough to know that there wasn't a lot that could bring her down. This was pure, genuine sorrow, a rare moment, yet somehow, Skyler seemed relieved as well. "What--?" she asked in a strangled voice.
"No. It's OK- but you know? I don't have any friends now " Gypsi quivered, wiping her eyes. "No one else will talk to me."
Skyler's eyes softened. That little girl had been persistanly trying to cheer her up, so she figured it was her turn. "I'll be your friend" she offered with a weak smile. "Really. You're nice."
Gypsi's ocean-tinted eyes glittered with a wild hope. But before she could respond, Jillian and Cassie came crashing through the trees, calling for her. Gypsi ran off further into the woods.
"Wonder where she's going-" Skyler mumbled, just before a breathless Cassie yanked her to her feet.
"Sky, I hate to say this, but we've got visitors" Jillian informed.
"What?!"
Her melancholy output disappeared almost instantly. "No way!"
"Inpherno took one of the bullies' Harmonies. Delphi Blade showed up and fought her off, but that monsters pretty tough. C'mon, we gotta go help."
"Right" Skyler rolled the Hurricane Ring and stood up. "EAGLE STAR POWER!"
"UNICORN STAR POWER!"
"PHOENIX STAR POWER!"
As the wind, light, and fire rattled the woods, a pair of astonished blue eyes stared from the safety of a nearby tree-
~*~*~*~*~
Streams of water danced and flurried across the field, leaving sparkling beads in their wake. Delphi Blade had dodged too many of them now. He had been reduced to his boomerang and his fists as his only weapons - this was a water Harmony, practically invulnerable to his own water attacks. He had tried controlling the shark-like creature's attacks, but with no effect.
The boomerang returned once again, touched only by the water. How was he supposed to defeat this thing by himself? He couldn't even get close, he wasn't sure what was in that water and he didn't want to find out. At least everyone had gotten a safe distance away - he just hoped Typhune wouldn't come back for another try. He had splashed her hard enough to make her retreat, just not quick enough to stop her from disrupting the Harmony.
The shark tossed something that looked like silver teeth, headed towards him in a diamond formation. He tossed the boomerang, knocking some of them offside. The rest shot past, inches away.
"ACK!" he heard someone shriek behind him.
Sailor Phoenix had just barely gotten out of the way of the teeth. Sailor Monoceros and Sailor Aquila came crashing out of the forest seconds later, Aquila's hand glowing with blue energy. "Razor Feather Flurry!"
The feathers scattered and dropped like pins in the water sprays. Aquila stopped short, her sandal wings wide open. Monoceros came right past her, light energy splitting through the water, but none of it going directly through.
Phoenix hung back. Something had held her there. She knew her fire element wouldn't work in the first place, plus the water sprays that shark was throwing would keep her far out of reach. But that wasn't it.
It was Skyler. The kid looked so tiny compared to this whole mess, like the Harmony's attacks would crush her in one strike. But she was angry at these boys before, and now they had been attacking her friends and family, even if it wasn't their fault. Something was going to happen here.
"Monoceros!" she barked.
Monoceros stopped and glanced back. "Wha-?"
Phoenix was right. As soon as Monoceros had turned, lightning bolts shot to the sky, trimmed with flourescent blue edges. It lashed out, wanting to go in every direction at once but held together by Skyler's glove. They rounded and formed into a pair of giant light wings behind her back.
"JUSTICE WING!"
All across town, the people jumped at the sound of exploding thunder. This only made Skyler's parents search harder. "Where's Skyler? Has anyone seen her? ANYONE?"
~*~*~*~*~
The Harmony, a shimmering blue crystal, floated from Orion's talon and back to the boy on the ground. Monoceros walked up beside him. "Good thing you showed up when you did."
Orion nodded. "I saw the lightning."
"Wait a minute" Monoceros said sharply. "Isn't Skyler's element Air?"
The eagle shut his eyes, landing and turning away from the boy. "When in need - Scouts have ways of calling up abilities beyond their normal capabilities. Did that Delphi Blade person fight this time?"
Phoenix hauled a limp, exhausted Sailor Aquila over towards them. "Delphi Blade? He's got like a Batman thing going or something - he just disappears somehow. He pretty much saved us, though. Is Aquila going to be OK?"
"I'm fine-" they heard her mumbled.
~*~*~*~*~
The light around her had become too dim for her to read her own writing. She closed the notebook carefully, as if it would shatter. She didn't want to drop it, she didn't usually do her homework on the roof. It wasn't like she could concentrate anyway, but she kept on it. Skyler had to go on as long as she could, that was that, and she didn't feel bad about that at all. She just felt a little empty at the moment.
But at least she didn't feel as restless about it as she had before. She wasn't sure why, she wondered if she'd ever know. She watched the ledge where the creek cut through the ground, and then the sky, where stars were already starting to show. Aquila still was there, but half of it was below the horizon. A sign of more things to come, maybe-
She flipped the notebook over. There were words on the back, words that she had etched in before but never really thought about it. She knew them without being able to see them. This time, she repeated them out loud.
~When I saw you last night~
~You were flying with your dreams~
~But when storms came in to fight~
~Your wings fell away in golden streams~
~Could joyful stars be that fragile?~
~In the light of your fading stare~
~I can see a memory that will always be gold~
~And the love that never was rare
~The stars in the sky are still~
~They'll be there as long as we can see~
~If only we could have lived up there~
~In that perfect world~
~Then you'd fly back to me~
EPISODE 10-ONLY IN MEMORY
"Though my love is rare-- though my love is true-"
Her soft singing was laced with somber spirit as it drifted over the short-grassed valley, floating along the evening breeze. The sun's delicate rays just barely skimmed the distant swaying corn stalks, playing off her hair in warm, ruby-like flashes. She swept her hand over the grass as she sang, her bare feet in a playful dance with emerging fireflies.
Water glimmered distantly, drawing Skyler's wistful glare. That clever, unfeeling creek. Sure, it looked innocent enough. She knew better.
Cassie had to look at it every night, but it wouldn't bother her nearly as much. She and Jillian were quite surprised to discover that she didn't actually live in the apartments, her house was actually pretty close to Skyler's. A quiet, elaborately-decorated house sitting atop one of the rolling hills just outside of Galesburg, overlooking a tranquil lake that leaked out into the creek eventually. The house, the property had been sculpted by an artist that had lived there before them. When she blocked out the creek, she did see some kind of rare yet isolated beauty.
"I'm like a bird, I'll only fly away-"
Orion's wingbeats ruffled her hair slightly as he landed next to her. "Don't you ever get tired of that song?"
"I've never heard it before."
Cassie sat down on the porch bench next to Jillian. "So what'd you want to talk about? Did you find anything about the Eclipzes?"
"Yes. My contact came up with some information for us, but their in a bit of a struggle themselves. Something to do with more enemies, but it isn't related to our problems."
"Who's the contact" Cassie questioned, raising an eyebrow. "How do you know they're reliable? How do you know they're not working for an enemy?"
Orion hopped down to the grass, dangerously close to Skyler's feet. The grass was much more comfortable for his thin toes. "You're a little suspicious, aren't you?" he remarked.
"I have my reasons to be."
Orion's eagle smile appeared. "Good. A Scout should be alert. Our contact is Luna, Sailor Moon's guardian."
That captured their attention immediately. "Sailor Moon?" Skyler queried, her once-somber eyes brighting instantly. "Does this Luna say anything about her? What's she like? Who is she?"
"Does she know who we are?" Jillian interjected.
Orion shook his head. "She doesn't know you're here. Luna does though, and I haven't got much information since she's been trying to work on her own problems. There's six Scouts now- oh, by the way, 'senshi' is a soldier."
"Soldier, that's what we always say in that speech" Jillian recalled.
"All those phrases-" Cassie added distantly. "I would never say something like that normally before I start a fight. But they just come out with the transformation. I mean, that fire and the sword? Not my style. Until I got that uniform. This is so weird to me-"
"You think it's weird?" Skyler exclaimed. "How do you think I feel? I almost got killed twice!"
Orion cleared his throat and hopped up onto the porch. "Not to frighten you" he started, calmly, as if to soften the impact of his words. "But Sailor Moon, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, and Venus- they've already been killed once."
"WHAT?!"
The girls' eyes, wide open, were locked on the eagle's. They were closed. "The Scouts of this system gave their lives to save this planet, in a battle that most people never saw. They never had a clue that the world was about to end. From the looks of it, neither did you."
The importance and danger of their mission suddenly seeped in with a chill deeper than any arctic wind. The fate of the world could rest on a group of kids that had no idea what they were doing.
Before the thoughts could settle in any deeper, Cassie's mother poked her head out the door. "Is someone here named Skyler?"
"Yeah?"
"There's a telephone call for you."
As Skyler went to take the call, Jillian and Cassie turned back to Orion, who had apparently been invisible to Cassie's mother. "Mercury? We've never heard of anyone but Sailor Moon" Jillian told him.
"You'll learn more along the way."
"If the world doesn't end" Cassie grumbled. "From what they say in the news, Sailor Moon's just a kid."
Orion fluttered up the the bench. His expression had a tinge of anger. "You have to trust in Sailor Moon. If you only knew-- but I can't tell you. It could severly damage you."
"So could the enemy!" Cassie shot back. "You're giving us more information, I'll admit that, but there's a lot you're hiding. Why?"
Jillian appeared just as flustered, but she kept her tone reserved.. "She's right, Orion. We need to know if we're going to make it."
For the first time, Orion shrunk back. His feathers slicked back in a cringe, his talons gripping the wood floor very tightly. His frightened, cornered appearance only made the two more suspicious. The tense air was interrupted as the door slammed behind Skyler.
"Skyler, do you--?"
Jillian trailed off as she noticed Skyler's pale cheeks, her wide, blank eyes. Her lips trembled softly, her hands gripped onto her t-shirt like a child would to a blanket. She stumbled, then resumed a slow, shaky pace towards her friends. She sat down on the bench, quietly, trying to disguise her shock with a calm air. She slipped one rollerblade on.
"What's up, Sky? You gotta go home? Did something happen?"
She surveyed the group, giving each of them a short, bleary stare. She swallowed hard as she pulled on the other blade and strapped it up, then stood on the edge of the driveway.
"They found him."
~*~*~*~*~
Shadows lingered from the streetlight below, a frozen puzzle engraved in a lonely blue-white glow. The air sifting through the windowscreen carried a cool, dewy scent and the airy music of crickets. Her sheets were inviting, tranquil, but Jillian couldn't catch the faintest strain of sleep. The quiet country air was still too settling for her, but her father insisted that she be in at nine, and there was nothing else to do but sleep. She rested her head on folded hands, staring up at the ceiling.
Poor Skyler. She had always had that light of hope in her eyes, that silver, uplifting hue that had been shattered by the phone call. But she seemed like she had accepted the fact that she wouldn't see her brother alive again. She wasn't very good at hiding her feelings, Jillian guessed.
Orion wasn't in much better shape. He was visibly jolted by the development, and she wondered why. He hadn't known Skyler for that long.
The recollection of Skyler's first meeting with him answered the question. He had been able to save Skyler, but not her brother. That was the problem, that's probably why he was affected like this. She sighed and turned to the wall across the room.
A golden picture frame glimmered from the streetlight. She could just barely make out the frozen faces of her mother and father, pressed close to a tiny version of herself. Lifeless joy. That's all these pictures were. She quickly turned to the opposite wall, pulling a sheet over her. If she only could have been the person in those pictures again. Endless contentment and all sorts of new things to discover, no responsibility, no argument-- innocence. Would she trade it all just to have these things back?
Maybe. But wishing wouldn't bring anything back, and she slapped herself mentally for letting her mind slip into things like that. Still, she couldn't keep out of the memories. She remembered in lucid detail that day, waiting for her mother to come home from work. How she remembered every bit of it was beyond her, but there it was, playing through her mind as if it just happened. She lay contentedly on the living room floor, crafting a long hairband out of smaller, multi-colored loops. A hot project for all the other 8-year-olds, and she was right in it with her friends. She had just learned this weaving technique from her next-door neighbor last night. Her father, still in his tidy gray suit he wore at his own job, rested on the couch behind her, his feet up on the newly-dusted coffee table. The six o'clock news blared on about a 5-year-old circus acrobat who's act had been sabotaged. "That's terrible-" she heard her father mumble.
"Mom's going to yell at you" she teased, lightly whapping his feet with a newspaper nearby.
"Oh, I'll hear her when she coes home" he chuckled, switching the feet. "Unless you're going to tell on me. Are you going to tell on me?"
"Depends if we got any ice cream" Jillian grinned.
"No, young lady. No snacks before dinner. I'd better get started on it, looks like your mom's going to be late."
Seven came and went, and soon so did eight. Her father hadn't sent her to bed yet. He usually insisted that she be in her room, lights out, at 8:00 sharp. She dropped the chilled spoon into the last remants of the melted sherbet, and with the most carefut walk she had ever put on around this time, crept up to her parents' bedroom door to listen to her father's phone conversation.
"Are you sure she didn't come in to the office? That maybe you just didn't see her?" he paused for a moment, his eyes widening slightly. "No, actually- I didn't see her yesterday. Usually the first time I see her is when she gets home from work-" his pace began to quicken and his voice rose. "But she called to tell me should would be late yesterday and I didn't wait for her-"
Jillian edged away from the room, slowly returning to the living room. Her father's alarmed tone resounded through her mind again and again. She didn't have to think about it to figure out that her mother was missing, but she hoped, she strained for something that might say she was just out there somewhere, just fine, everything would be OK, she just couldn't get to a phone.
Just like Skyler.
The rest briefly passed by her closed eyes. The doorbell after ten. The policewoman with that oddly shadowed face. Her father crumbling onto the couch as if he were trying to hide from Jillian. And she couldn't do anything except stare in horror. Daddies didn't cry, that was something she knew.
They didn't cry now. They weren't even sorry.
Her nails were pressed so hard against the mattress she thought they might break. She willed herself to relax, running one hand through her restless, tangled locks. No use dwelling on the past. She'd have to be there for Skyler at the memorial service tomorrow.
~*~*~*~*~
"I'm glad I could meet you tonight."
The screen's light reflected blue off Orion's metallic feathers and glassy eyes, focused on the deep red ones staring back at him. He still found it odd to be talking to a cat. Cats were something he should run from. Well, normal birds- and he wasn't a normal bird. No normal bird would be communicating through an international network from a tiny, isolated computer at the airport.
"You've been catching on quickly" Luna continued. "Have you had any progress with you mission?"
"No sign of the Melody Crystals" Orion replied. He was trying to keep his voice formal, but he couldn't strain out all the frustration in it. So far, he had managed to make Sailor Monoceros and Phoenix suspicious of him, and he didn't have the slightest clue of where to go next with the Crystals.
"You look a little tired" Luna observed.
"Maybe you should check the Polar Network" Artemis called from the background.
"The Polar Network?" Orion exclaimed, his feathers bristling slightly. "It's still online?!"
The cat's spacy blue eyes peered around the edge of the screen. "Yeah, but we can't connect to it from our position. We've got some of our own problems, anyway-"
Orion's gaze dropped to his feet. "Is Sailor Moon handling things well?"
"They all are, but the enemies are appearing more frequently."
"Our Scouts are getting impatient already."
Luna's silky black fur wrinkled. Orion closed one eye halfway. "What?"
"Scout. I still don't understand why you call them that."
The other eyelid dropped. "That's not important right now."
"You're right, I apologize. Just be patient yourself, and eventually they'll follow."
"I'm worried about Sailor Aquila. Sailor Monoceros and Pheonix, they may be impatient, but they know what they have to do. They know how to fight. Aquila, though--" Orion sighed. "It's like she was back then. I wish I could just tell them."
"She shaped up, didn't she back then? She'll eventually get her spirit back. In the meantime, I suggest you do some research on your own enemies. You should be able to get into the Polar Network from your position."
"Is there anything I can do for you?" Orion offered.
"No, unfortunately we seem to be as clueless as you are. I'll try to organize things with the Senshi. I'll send the link to the Network. It should appear when this transmission ends. This is Luna, over and out."
The screen flickered back to the blank desktop, leaving only that tiny crescent moon icon in the corner, and a new one, a violet, multi-pointed star. The Polar Network was something he hadn't heard in a long time- he couldn't figure out how the system would still be up if all the contact points had been destroyed.
Except Earth.
He touched an extended talon to the icon. It twirled to the center of the screen, then flared up with a light that was anything but electronic. He hid his eyes behind one wing, listening to the Network's foreign pulses negotiate with the computer's stubborn codes.
Finally, the noise died down with the light. "Welcome, Guardian Star" a soft woman's voice greeted.
He grinned his eagle grin. The Network was up, and it remembered him! He trotted over to the microphone, which had been carelessly tossed to the corner of the workspace, and dragged it back to the edge of the desk with his beak. "Change profile" he commanded.
It worked quietly. "Please indicate what you wish to change."
"User Name - Orion."
~*~*~*~*~
The heat poured through Skyler's short black dress, lingering in heavy layers under the seemingly thin fabric. Her feet remained motionless above the first rung of the wooden fence, directly under her gaze. They had found Oriole and she couldn't even look at him. No one could. The police said he was barely in one piece. But she couldn't even turn an eye to the tombstone. She hid from the crowd, nearly the whole town. She didn't want them to see her. Not because she didn't want them to see her cry-- she didn't want them to see her not cry. Not a single tear had escaped, not one single emotion tossed her spirit like a willow in a storm. Didn't she care? Didn't she want Oriole back? She knew the answer was yes-- but she felt as empty and heartless as the torn field off to her left. The fence had more warmth than she did.
"Skyler."
A hand rested on her shoulder cautiously, so she wouldn't lose her balance. Jillian and Cassie got up on the fence posts on either side of her, facing the forest. "Your mom and dad are worried about you."
"About what?" Her voice was low, but chillingly still.
"Umm- uh, they don't know where you are."
"Oh. I thought it was something else."
Jillian and Cassie exchanged concerned glances. "Anything you wanna tell us?" Cassie prodded.
"We're listening. It's not good for you to bottle up things" Jillian added.
"That's just it. There's nothing to bottle up. It's like-- like-" Skyler sighed. "It's like I don't even care. I know I do. It's like that me ran away. I don't want to be like this."
Cassie smiled. "Hey, at least you showed up. Orion didn't even bother to get his feathered butt down here."
"He said he had found something important" Jillian explained.
"Shhh-" Cassie warned, pointing to the people nearby.
A tiny girl stood no more than two feet away. The sunlight played magnificently off her periwinkle pigtails. It reminded Cassie of northern Lake Michigan. Her eyes were the same shade, shaped in a playful manner that matched her appearance. Maybe four or five years old. She was a little over half Skyler's size. "You care" the girl insisted, approaching Skyler.
The girl's voice was kind, and spoken with an amazingly mature tone for its high pitch. Skyler dropped off the fence and kneeled by her. "What's your name?"
"Gypsi Chapp. You're his sister. I saw you help him at school. You care."
"At school, huh? I guess you never came to our house."
"Daddy wouldn't let me. He didn't like me playing with the first-graders. He says that 9-year-old kids should stay with people their own age."
The three girls' eyes shot wide open simultaneaously. "YOU'RE 9?!"
Gypsi giggled. The laugh was tiny, yet heartful, and each one touched them like a cool, soothing drop of rain. "Yep. Lookie, don't be mad, but I heard you before. See, you care because if you didn't, you wouldn't be confused."
Jillian beamed. "That's right, Skyler. You wouldn't be talking to us about this stuff if you didn't." she turned a sugary smile to Gypsi. "You're a pretty smart kid."
"That's what Oriole said. But those guys over there, they think I'm stupid. They used to beat up Oriole. Now they come after me. But they're afraid of Skyler. Can you scare them away for me?"
She indicated a group of fourth-graders, resting lazily against the fence a few yards down. "Of course he got blown away, he must've weighed, like two pounds."
"Yep, all of it in his feet-"
The girls saw Skyler's eyes narrow, rage darkening the silver to a stormy gray. Her cheeks touched with a brilliant red, her trembling fists tightening as she stomped over to the boys. Cassie grabbed her arm. "Skyler, wait a minute!"
She jerked it away. The boys got up, lining up right in her path. Despite the fact that she was quite a bit taller than they were and looked like she was about to explode, they didn't even flinch. "What do you want?" one of them demanded.
"Quit talking about my brother like that!"
Her voice was very forceful, but her friends could hear her voice breaking. The boys only gave back muffled giggles. "What are you gonna do about it?"
"It's a free country" another boy piped up.
Skyler had no patience left. She lunged at the first boy that had spoken, tackling him to the ground. The other boys jumped in, followed by several parents who had caught wind of the scuffle. In a few minutes, the group was separated. Skyler's father stormed over. "That's enough!" he roared. "Skyler!"
She was nowhere in sight. Her father glanced around once, then went back to where he was, as did the other parents. Jillian and Cassie scanned the area. "Huh? Where'd she go?"
"Who cares?" the fourth-grader scoffed.
Cassie's eyes gleamed like a sharply cut emerald. "Hey, kid. You wanna start something?"
The kid was about to reply, but he found himself staring just a few inches from the pair threatening green eyes and one steady, ready-to-strike fist. He swallowed hard and back up, then ran off.
"You ever bother Skyler and them again, you'd better be running!" Cassie yelled.
Jillian watched Cassie as she returned. It definetely was the eyes that had scared the kid off, Jillian herself felt a little overpowered by looking at them. "C'mon, we gotta find Skyler-"
~*~*~*~*~
Quiet sobbing led the little girl to where Skyler had hidden. It was quite a ways into the woods, she must have been able to run pretty fast to get to where she was.
'Why were those boys so mean to her?', Gypsi wondered. 'Why are they so mean to everyone?'
She didn't want to debate the mechanics of 10-year-old boys at the moment. Too confusing for her. This girl, Skyler, needed someone to talk to right now. It was so strange - she had the same aura as her brother. Something special, something that made her stand out, like Oriole. At least- Oriole had been special to her.
"Please don't cry" she whimpered, as her own eyes dampened. She had been so worried about what the others felt like that she had forgotten her own feelings for the moment. "Please-"
Skyler glanced up, startling the sky-haired girl. Though Skyler hadn't seen her before, Gypsi knew Skyler well enough to know that there wasn't a lot that could bring her down. This was pure, genuine sorrow, a rare moment, yet somehow, Skyler seemed relieved as well. "What--?" she asked in a strangled voice.
"No. It's OK- but you know? I don't have any friends now " Gypsi quivered, wiping her eyes. "No one else will talk to me."
Skyler's eyes softened. That little girl had been persistanly trying to cheer her up, so she figured it was her turn. "I'll be your friend" she offered with a weak smile. "Really. You're nice."
Gypsi's ocean-tinted eyes glittered with a wild hope. But before she could respond, Jillian and Cassie came crashing through the trees, calling for her. Gypsi ran off further into the woods.
"Wonder where she's going-" Skyler mumbled, just before a breathless Cassie yanked her to her feet.
"Sky, I hate to say this, but we've got visitors" Jillian informed.
"What?!"
Her melancholy output disappeared almost instantly. "No way!"
"Inpherno took one of the bullies' Harmonies. Delphi Blade showed up and fought her off, but that monsters pretty tough. C'mon, we gotta go help."
"Right" Skyler rolled the Hurricane Ring and stood up. "EAGLE STAR POWER!"
"UNICORN STAR POWER!"
"PHOENIX STAR POWER!"
As the wind, light, and fire rattled the woods, a pair of astonished blue eyes stared from the safety of a nearby tree-
~*~*~*~*~
Streams of water danced and flurried across the field, leaving sparkling beads in their wake. Delphi Blade had dodged too many of them now. He had been reduced to his boomerang and his fists as his only weapons - this was a water Harmony, practically invulnerable to his own water attacks. He had tried controlling the shark-like creature's attacks, but with no effect.
The boomerang returned once again, touched only by the water. How was he supposed to defeat this thing by himself? He couldn't even get close, he wasn't sure what was in that water and he didn't want to find out. At least everyone had gotten a safe distance away - he just hoped Typhune wouldn't come back for another try. He had splashed her hard enough to make her retreat, just not quick enough to stop her from disrupting the Harmony.
The shark tossed something that looked like silver teeth, headed towards him in a diamond formation. He tossed the boomerang, knocking some of them offside. The rest shot past, inches away.
"ACK!" he heard someone shriek behind him.
Sailor Phoenix had just barely gotten out of the way of the teeth. Sailor Monoceros and Sailor Aquila came crashing out of the forest seconds later, Aquila's hand glowing with blue energy. "Razor Feather Flurry!"
The feathers scattered and dropped like pins in the water sprays. Aquila stopped short, her sandal wings wide open. Monoceros came right past her, light energy splitting through the water, but none of it going directly through.
Phoenix hung back. Something had held her there. She knew her fire element wouldn't work in the first place, plus the water sprays that shark was throwing would keep her far out of reach. But that wasn't it.
It was Skyler. The kid looked so tiny compared to this whole mess, like the Harmony's attacks would crush her in one strike. But she was angry at these boys before, and now they had been attacking her friends and family, even if it wasn't their fault. Something was going to happen here.
"Monoceros!" she barked.
Monoceros stopped and glanced back. "Wha-?"
Phoenix was right. As soon as Monoceros had turned, lightning bolts shot to the sky, trimmed with flourescent blue edges. It lashed out, wanting to go in every direction at once but held together by Skyler's glove. They rounded and formed into a pair of giant light wings behind her back.
"JUSTICE WING!"
All across town, the people jumped at the sound of exploding thunder. This only made Skyler's parents search harder. "Where's Skyler? Has anyone seen her? ANYONE?"
~*~*~*~*~
The Harmony, a shimmering blue crystal, floated from Orion's talon and back to the boy on the ground. Monoceros walked up beside him. "Good thing you showed up when you did."
Orion nodded. "I saw the lightning."
"Wait a minute" Monoceros said sharply. "Isn't Skyler's element Air?"
The eagle shut his eyes, landing and turning away from the boy. "When in need - Scouts have ways of calling up abilities beyond their normal capabilities. Did that Delphi Blade person fight this time?"
Phoenix hauled a limp, exhausted Sailor Aquila over towards them. "Delphi Blade? He's got like a Batman thing going or something - he just disappears somehow. He pretty much saved us, though. Is Aquila going to be OK?"
"I'm fine-" they heard her mumbled.
~*~*~*~*~
The light around her had become too dim for her to read her own writing. She closed the notebook carefully, as if it would shatter. She didn't want to drop it, she didn't usually do her homework on the roof. It wasn't like she could concentrate anyway, but she kept on it. Skyler had to go on as long as she could, that was that, and she didn't feel bad about that at all. She just felt a little empty at the moment.
But at least she didn't feel as restless about it as she had before. She wasn't sure why, she wondered if she'd ever know. She watched the ledge where the creek cut through the ground, and then the sky, where stars were already starting to show. Aquila still was there, but half of it was below the horizon. A sign of more things to come, maybe-
She flipped the notebook over. There were words on the back, words that she had etched in before but never really thought about it. She knew them without being able to see them. This time, she repeated them out loud.
~When I saw you last night~
~You were flying with your dreams~
~But when storms came in to fight~
~Your wings fell away in golden streams~
~Could joyful stars be that fragile?~
~In the light of your fading stare~
~I can see a memory that will always be gold~
~And the love that never was rare
~The stars in the sky are still~
~They'll be there as long as we can see~
~If only we could have lived up there~
~In that perfect world~
~Then you'd fly back to me~