Chapter Three: The Secret Origins of Sailor Athena
Four years ago
Perseus, Artemis, and Luna were awakening from their millennia-long sleep in the cryogenic capsule. Percy had been the first to rouse enough for coherent thought. He focused sleep-blurred eyes on the figure standing above him. The green-haired woman stooped to his level, her staff held carefully in one hand while the other reached out to scratch him on his whitening ears.
"Greetings Perseus."
"Pluto…" Percy's voice rusty from long disuse. He coughed to clear it. "Where am I? And what are you doing here?"
The Guardian of Time smiled down at the cat. "As direct as always Percy." She paused to lift the cat from his capsule. She placed him on the floor and rocked back on her heels. The Time Staff was balanced across her knees as she studied him through the impassive mask required by her duties. "You are on Earth. Do you remember how you came to be here?"
"Not really," Percy frowned, as much as a cat can frown. "I remember fragments of a great battle. I remember loss, fear, pain…more flashes of emotion than anything else." He paused, eyes wandering aimlessly around the chamber. "Queen Serenity!" His head snapped back around to Pluto. "Where is the Queen?!!"
"You remember more than I thought you would, although that shouldn't surprise me considering your long association with the Planet of Memory." A noisy yawn from Artemis's capsule distracted her for a second. "I don't have much time. Percy, you must trust me." Red eyes met green ones for an intense moment. Percy nodded slowly. "Thank you… Listen carefully. The others must not know of me."
"Why?"
"It is necessary. You three have important duties to perform. The Earth is in great danger. The seal that Queen Serenity put on the Negaverse is weakening and the Enemy is beginning to stir. The Sailor Scouts must be found and prepared to face this menace. You, Perseus, are to find Sailor Athena. The two of you will serve as a vanguard for the rest. Artemis is to find Sailor Venus, Code-name Sailor V. They will slow the Negaverse until the others are awoken. Luna is to find Sailor Moon and the other members of the Inner Guard. Their duty is to find and protect the Moon Princess. You will all find the things that you need in your sub-space pockets."
"How will we find these girls?"
Pluto waved her staff and three swirling portals appeared. "These will take you to the times and places that you are needed. You will have to rely on your instincts from there. Remember Luna and Artemis must not know of me. Their memories and yours will return as needed. It is a fine path we must walk to save this planet." Pluto stood and began to walk away.
"Pluto!"
The Time Guardian stopped her back to Perseus. "Yes?"
"Serenity's dead isn't she." It was a statement, not a question.
"The Queen is dead, long live the Queen," she intoned, then with a wave of her staff she created a portal, stepped through it and was gone.
Percy waited patiently until the two younger Guardian Cats were awake enough to listen and then explained as much as he was allowed to them. Luna was indignant, and demanded to know more. Artemis just sat there, allowing the female to protest with his face set in a 'why me?' expression. Perseus finally just snapped at them.
"You are Guardian Cats! Stop complaining like a couple of spoiled kittens! We have been called upon to do an important mission and, by the gods, we're going to do it!" his eyes blazed at the two before him. They both bowed their heads to the authority in his voice. Although their memories were very patchy, they knew that Perseus was the eldest, and thus most senior, Guardian Cat in the Solar System.
"You're right," Luna for once sounded contrite, "It is our duty and we'll do it."
Artemis just nodded. Percy didn't expect any more from him. It was his easy-going nature that made Artemis the perfect Cat for Venus with her appalling amount of energy and tendency to be obsessive. Perseus met each of their eyes once more before rising to his feet.
"Till we meet again then. May the light of knowledge shine on your path." With the traditional Athenian farewell, Perseus walked into his portal and vanished.
After a few more minutes, Artemis and Luna said their good-byes and then left to find what destiny had in store for them.
*****************
Perseus stepped out of the portal into an alley. The gray tomcat wrinkled his nose at the stench rising from the rubbish-strewn pavement. He picked his way with finicky precision to the alley entrance. What he saw outside on the street astounded him. The noisy vehicles, scurrying people, and towering buildings were like nothing in his fragmented memories. Where were the open spaces? The trees? The gracious homes and neat farms? He backed deeper into the alley. Clearly this was going to be even harder than he had expected. Spying a metal ladder and balcony system on the building beside him, he began to climb. Once reaching the roof he lay down in a patch of sunlight and began to plan.
He dredged up every fragment of memory, every impression associated with Sailor Athena. Brown hair, gray eyes, even classical features that would allow her to mature to be a strikingly beautiful woman. Percy knew that she would be about fourteen years of age, so that narrowed the field some, though not enough considering the mass of humanity in this city. None the less, he was confident that if he saw her that he would recognize her.
The planet of Athena had been the Planet of Memory and Music before her destruction. Percy's one truly clear memory was of the devastation he felt when he was informed that his home and the vast majority of her people had been destroyed in a cataclysmic explosion that turned the whole planet into rubble.
He pushed the painful thought from his mind. Sailor Athena had always been more at ease with the Music part of her powers. She used them almost without thought. Percy smiled as he remembered the way music seemed to swirl around her like a cloud. She could shape the mood of almost any person or group by projecting the appropriate music into the situation. Her musical manipulations were a constant in the lives of all that associated with her.
Perseus snapped out of his reverie. "I'm getting as bad as young Artemis. Dozing in the sun like this. It's time to start looking for Athena." He climbed onto the ledge surrounding the edge of the flat roof. The city seemed to stretch forever with its massive towers of stone and glass. "Pluto said to rely on my instincts. I hope that they're in good working order, because it'll be like finding a ruby in the sands of Mars to find one young girl in all of these people." Percy hopped down onto the fire escape and began making his way down to the street. "The first order of business is to find a base, gather information about this city and then to start looking in earnest. Music will be the key, I'm sure of that."
Several hours later Perseus was in an abandoned building pouring over a map he had snatched from a street vendor as he munched on something called a 'hot-dog'. "So much has changed," he thought with a sigh, "How long did we sleep in those capsules for all of this to happen? On second thought, I probably don't want to know." He returned his wandering thoughts to the map. There was something about the section labeled 'Manhattan' that drew him. Since he was supposed to follow his instincts, he decided to start there.
The next day found him wandering the streets in one of the more affluent sections of New York, The brownstones that lined the neatly kept streets were obviously the homes of the well to do. Percy was quick to discover that talking cats were not normal here and that strays were for the most part unwelcome. He sensed that his goal was near, but he couldn't find her. After several days, he was thoroughly disgusted and was thinking seriously about getting in touch with Sailor Pluto and trying to convince her to help him.
He lay down on a window ledge of yet another brownstone, feeling totally depressed. Something attracted his attention: somewhere nearby a girl was singing. He listened, motionless, until she stopped. He leapt onto the wall surrounding the minuscule backyard belonging to the brownstone. A girl was on her knees, busily painting a Styrofoam ball. Eight others were lined up nearby. Perseus studied the back of her bent neck for a moment before turning away, convinced it had been a false alarm. The girl put down the ball she had finished and pick up the next one. She began to absentmindedly sing again.
"I'm your Venus, I'm your fire. It's your desire…" Underneath the sound of her sweet voice, Percy could hear the faint sounds of the instruments backing her up. Instruments that didn't exist anywhere outside of her mind. The sounds came from empty air simply because the singer willed them to.
Perseus grinned widely. "Not Venus," he whispered, "Athena!"
************
Percy smiled again in the darkness of Cassandra's bedroom. Her trembling had stopped and he sensed her muscles begin to relax. He relaxed himself and slipped into sleep.
Cassie wasn't asleep. Although her body was almost recovered from the use of her powers in the fight with the Negaversian monster earlier that day, her mind was still racing. She smiled as she felt Percy heave a sigh in his sleep. The two of them had come a long way since the day he had found her in New York City.
*************
Cassie knelt in the midst of her project, Styrofoam ball in one hand, paintbrush in the other. She put one last stroke of orange paint on the ball and examined it critically. Still humming under her breath, she put the finished piece down. The planets were all now painted. She stared at the nine painted balls as she waited for the last of the paint to dry so that she could string them on the wire frame she had already made to hold her model of the solar system. She ran through the list of planets again in her mind. There were only nine planets in the system, but something in her insisted that something was missing. Once again she called out each of their names as she laid a light finger on the ball representing each planet.
"Mercury." A flash of intelligent blues eyes and matching blue hair flashed across her mind's eye. She shook it off. Strange images like that one had been popping into her head for a few months now and she had learned through necessity to at least pretend to ignore them.
"Venus." Blonde hair and an infectious giggle, a voice whispered, 'I am the goddess of Love!"
"Earth." A dark haired boy in a suit of armor smiled at her, as did the regal blonde girl with the strange hair-do in his arms.
"Mars." Fire rimmed violet eyes stared into hers.
She paused a moment at the gap between Mars and Jupiter before moving on.
"Jupiter." A distant crash of thunder echoed in her mind along with a sense of fierce protective loyalty.
"Saturn." Immense power sang around the young girl who smiled shyly at her.
"Uranus." Wind whipped up the proud warrior girl's short dark blonde hair.
"Neptune." An elegant girl held a violin in one hand and reached the other out to out to Cassie. 'I miss the music,' she whispered without moving her lips.
Cassie's hand was trembling as she reached the last planet. "Pluto." A green haired woman met her eyes gravely and nodded in greeting. 'Athena.' The word hung in her mind like smoke until she forced it from her.
The girl placed her hands flat on the ground before her. "What is wrong? What is missing? I have all of the planets here! There are only nine!" She desperately tried to convince herself.
"There were once ten." The sudden intrusion of a male voice made her jump. She spun, looking frantically for the source of the voice but there was no one there except for a gray cat with a crescent moon on its forehead. The cat ducked its forequarters as if bowing to the astonished fourteen-year-old.
"Oh man," she moaned. "Either I'm going nuts or that acrylic paint has a lot more kick to it than its supposed to."
"You're not crazy, my lady." Cassie sat down hard as she stared in disbelief at the cat.
"If I'm not crazy, then I must be on some kind of crazy trip," Cassie mumbled to herself. "All right, I'll play along. Who are you? Or better yet, what are you?"
"I am Perseus, Guardian Cat to Sailor Athena."
"Sailor Athena?" the confusion in the girl's eyes made Percy shake his head in consternation.
"Have the people of this time forgotten entirely about the Sailor Scouts?" The blank look he received was an ample answer. Percy walked up to the girl and sat down directly in front of her. "Let me start with a little background. The Sailor Scouts were female warriors that protected this solar system long ago. There was one for each planet except for the Earth. They carried the names and powers of their respective planets. They fought the forces of evil wherever they appeared. You, my dear… by the way what is your name?"
"Cassie, Cassandra Whitmore."
"Cassandra, you are the Sailor Scout of the Planet of Memory and Music: Sailor Athena!"
"There is no planet named Athena," Cassie protested.
"Like I said there were once ten planets in this system. Athena was destroyed long ago." Cassie turned back towards her unfinished project and stared for an endless moment at the space between Mars and Jupiter.
"The asteroid belt…" she breathed.
Percy nodded. "That is all that is left of Athena. She used to be the center of learning and the arts for the whole system, but the Negaverse destroyed her."
Cassie sat stunned. Intellectually, she knew that what the cat had claimed was preposterous. In fact, holding a conversation with a talking animal was just as impossible. But deep inside her, as she stared into the cat's grass-green eyes, she knew he was telling her the truth. The little voice inside that had been whispering to her urged her to accept his tale; that this was what she was born for.
Percy stared at the young girl's gray eyes and saw the struggle that she was engaged in. He made a sudden decision. "Let me give you proof that you are the Champion of Justice, Sailor Athena." He sprang into the air in a backflip. A pen appeared out of thin air and dropped to the ground. He pushed it towards Cassie. She picked it up and examined the silver-gray pen numbly.
"Hold it up and say 'Athena Power!'" Perseus commanded.
Cassandra obeyed and in a burst of silver and burgundy power, Sailor Athena appeared for the first time in 25,000 years.
*************
Cassie smiled in the darkened room and reach up to scratch the ears of the cat on her stomach. It had been quite a trip since that eventful day. And she wouldn't have missed it for the world. The Sailor Scout finally closed her eyes and went to sleep.
Next Time on Sailor Moon: Serenity's Court:
The Sailor Scouts and Tuxedo Mask get a big surprise in: Hi Scouts! Meet the New Sailor!
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