Chapter 10: Who Is This Hermes?
Cassie skipped school Tuesday and spent the whole day catching up on much needed sleep. She was in a much better frame of mind when she arrived at the Cherry Hill Temple after school had let out. She met Zoë as they were both walking up the steps from the street.
"Good afternoon Lady Guardian!" Cassie grinned at her friend.
"You're in a better mood today! Maybe you should skip school more often," Zoë replied.
"Don't tempt me!" The girls laughed companionably as they entered the temple grounds. Raye's Grandpa met them at the door of the temple.
"Hello girls! Are you here to become acolytes? You'd look real cute in temple robes," the impish man grinned toothily up at them.
"Grandpa! Leave my friends alone!" Raye stormed out of the temple behind him swinging her broom wildly.
"Raye! Watch where you're swinging that thing!" he bellowed as the straw end missed him by millimeters. He wandered off grumbling under his breath about cruel granddaughters and the need for more cute help around the temple.
Raye lowered her broom. "Sorry about that. He just gets lonely around here now that Chad is taking classes at the college."
"No problem Raye. He doesn't mean any harm." Zoë grinned. "Actually I'm kind of flattered that he thinks that I could be a cute acolyte." Raye rolled her eyes.
"Are we the first here?" Cassie asked.
"Yes, except for the cats. They got here a while ago. But Amy just called on the communicator. The others will be here as soon as they can drag Mina away from your brother."
"Speaking of communicators…" Zoë drawled suggestively.
"Oh stop hinting!" Cassie pulled a watch out of her purse. She handed it to her friend.
Zoë took the watch in her hand and examined it closely. It had a round, gunmetal gray body with the ring symbol of Earth surrounding a crown in green on the flip top. She flipped it open with a grin on her face. "I felt so guilty about the fight yesterday. I didn't even know that there was any trouble." She closed the face and fastened the watch to her wrist. "Where did you get this?"
"I had Percy whip it up for you last night. He made one for Molly too." She glanced over at Zoë when she mentioned the newest member of the team.
Zoë caught the look and smiled lopsidedly. She patted Cassie on the shoulder. "Don't worry Cass. Molly and I had a long talk on the phone last night. She doesn't blame me for Nephrite's death."
Raye nodded in agreement. "Yeah, Molly doesn't remember much about the first time we lived through eighth grade. We had a time explaining the whole thing to her." The priestess led the way into the private quarters behind the main temple. As they entered Raye's sitting room, they heard loud laughter coming up the hill. "That's the rest of the girls, I bet."
The girls piled into the room, giggling and shedding bags and jackets. It was getting to be that time of year when it was nippy in the morning and hot in the afternoon. Once everyone was settled, Luna called the meeting to order, or at least she attempted to call the meeting to order. Everyone ignored her as they caught up on gossip. She and Perseus shared wry smile.
"Cassandra?" Molly's Bronx accent cut through the babble of conversation.
"Yes Molly."
"You said yesterday that I was from the Silver Millennium. Does that mean that I have powers too?" That questioned silenced the room like all of Luna's shouting couldn't.
"Well," Cassie began; rubbing the back of her head slightly embarrassed at the pleading look in Molly's eyes. "I don't know if you have any powers. I don't remember enough about Serenity's majordomo. My memories are so full of holes that it resembles Swiss cheese. All I really know about your former life was that you were very much in love with Nephrite and that you were extremely close to Princess Serenity."
Serena smacked herself on the forehead. "Why didn't I see that? Molly was the girl in the conference room, the one with the staff."
"What conference room? What staff?" Molly's confusion was evident.
"I'll show you," Cassie reached across the low table and took Molly's hand as her eyes turned to burgundy with Athena power. "Athena Memory Vortex!" The tendrils of burgundy power swirled around the pair like smoke. Cassandra showed her the last meeting in the conference room at the Moon Palace and the final battle of the Moon Kingdom. The two stayed frozen for almost ten minutes before coming suddenly back to life. Tears were sliding silently down Molly's cheeks.
"That was intense," the young girl whispered brokenly, "I can't believe that I lived a whole other life."
"I know," Serena said softly as she hugged her friend.
After a moment, Molly wiped her tears from her face. "How can I be of any use against the Negaverse without any powers?"
"With this," Cassie pulled another watch out of her purse. This one was the same red as Sailor Moon's bows. It had a yellow crescent moon with a yellow crown nestled between its points on the flip top. "This is a communicator. You can be another set of eyes and ears." She placed the watch on the table and slid it across to Molly. She tapped the insignia with a fingernail. "You're a member of the Moon Court. Never doubt yourself."
"That's right Molly!" Perseus exclaimed as he leapt up on the table. "Luna, Artemis, and I have no mystic powers. Neither does Christopher for that matter. And we all do our part in the battle against evil!"
Molly nodded decisively. "You're right! I'll do anything to help my friends! Besides I'm tired of being attacked without being able to call in cavalry." She fastened the watch to her wrist with a fierce grin. Everyone cheered wildly.
After the noise had died down some, Luna jumped up on the table and sat up tall with her tail wrapped tightly around her hindquarters. "Can we get down to business now?" The remaining jubilance died down into seriousness. "We need to discuss this new general, Hermes. Artemis?"
The white cat cleared his throat as he joined the other two felines on the low table. "Amy, Luna, and I went over the few readings that she gathered at the fight yesterday. This new general is something different from Beryl's generals. Zoë, do you know anything about him?"
The girl twirled a loose curl around her finger as she concentrated on her memories of the Dark Kingdom. "I don't know anything about a Dark Kingdomer named Hermes. In fact, as far as I know Malachite, Nephrite, Jadeite, and I were the only generals, period." She smiled weakly, "We were all very careful to make sure that none of the youma became intelligent enough to be a threat to our position. It wasn't very difficult to remove any competition. Most youma are dumber than dirt and easily manipulated, if you are willing to use fear tactics." She trailed off into silence. Gloom pervaded the room.
Mina shifted uneasily. "Artemis." The cat turned to face his charge. "You said that this general was different than what we've seen before. How?"
Artemis turned to the blue-haired girl. "Amy, would you explain?"
Amy nodded and pulled out her computer and placed it on the table. "When I found out Beryl's generals were Endymion's Guardians, I went back and ran their energy profiles and compared them to Tuxedo Mask's. Under all of the negative energy, there was still a base line of Earth energy. This led me to design a program…"
"Amy, you loosing some of us," Raye interrupted. Amy looked up from her screen and saw the glaze-eyed looks on Mina and Lita's faces. Serena had slid down to lie on the floor. She sighed.
"Okay," she began again. "Beryl's generals had energy readings similar to Tuxedo Mask's. This new general doesn't." She snapped her computer closed.
"What kind of reading does Hermes have then?" Lita asked.
Amy stared down at her closed computer. She clinched her hands in her lap. "He exhibits traces of Mercury power."
"What?!!" Serena jumped bolt up right, catching the edge of the low table. She managed to over turn it, dumping the three cats and causing Amy's computer to go flying. Zoë caught the computer as it sailed by her head. Cassie snagged Percy as he slid by, but Luna and Artemis ended up on the floor. The table ended up upside down on top of Raye.
"Meatball Head!!!" the enraged priestess screamed; only her arms and legs sticking out from under the table.
"Raaaye, it was just an accident!" Serena tried to explain. Raye just shoved the table off of her and stood up. Steam was coming from her ears. "Raye! You're not mad, are you? Heh, heh, heh." Serena laughed sheepishly.
The priestess growled, "I'm going rip those meatballs right off your pointy head!" She lunged at the blonde, hands out-stretched to grab the nearest ponytail. Serena shrieked and ran out of the room. Raye followed on her heels, pausing only to grab her broom from where it leaned by the door.
"Is this normal?" Molly asked with a barely controlled laugh as she righted the table.
"Unfortunately, yes," Artemis groused. He and Luna were so tangled up that it would have been hard to tell where one cat ended and the next began if they weren't different colors. Mina and Lita pulled them apart with some difficulty.
"Now Amy, before we were so rudely interrupted," Luna glared at Serena, who was running past the window with a broom-wielding Shinto priestess right behind her, "You explaining that this Hermes has some trace of Mercury power."
Amy retrieved her computer from Zoë and held it securely in her lap. "Yes," she said shortly.
"Well, that makes sense," Cassie said, "Hermes is the Greek version of Mercury in mythology."
"Does General Hermes use Mercury power Ames?" Mina asked.
"No," Amy sighed, "He uses Nega-energy. There is only a bare trace of Mercury power under the other power. I wouldn't even have noticed it if I didn't look for it."
"Do you," Lita asked hesitantly, her voice uncharacteristically subdued, "do you feel any connection to him?"
The girl shook her head hard enough cause her short blue locks to flick across her face. "No, I don't sense anything through my powers, but I could swear that I know him from somewhere." Amy watched her finger trace over and over the Mercury symbol on her computer. Her brow was furrowed with lines of frustration.
Zoë reached over to tap the distraught girl on the shoulder. "Could he be a human who has been taken over? Like I was?"
Amy looked up into her green eyes. "That is a possibility."
Perseus cleared his throat. "I hesitate to mention this, but I feel that I must." All eyes fastened on the gray cat. "This Hermes could be a Mercurian Knight."
"You could be right Percy," Cassandra breathed. Her eyes were fixed on his as her mind raced. "That is a very good possibility. But how do we confirm it?" She pulled a little notebook from her purse and began scribbling furiously while mumbling under her breath.
"Cassie! What are you doing?" Molly asked, confused.
Lita slammed her fist down on the table. "Could you interpret for the rest of us?"
Cassie didn't respond; her mind was still a million miles away. Percy glanced at her and shook his head. "You won't get anything out of her now. She's chasing some line of thought. She's been known to spend hours like that." The cat waved a paw at his charge as she continued muttering and scribbling, occasionally pausing to nod to herself or to chew on the end of her pen.
"Well then, you explain!" Amy almost begged, her hands white knuckled as they clutched the Mercury computer.
Percy stretched out across the tabletop. "To understand the implications, you must understand how the Planetary Knights were placed in the scheme of things. During the Silver Millennium, there was an interlocking system of military services. It was this system of mutual protection that united the planets of the Alliance in a web of interlocking strands of loyalties as or more important than the treaties that linked the governments of the different planets.
The first level of the military was the Silver Army whose loyalty was to the Silver Throne. The Silver Army drew its members from all of the planets. It was a place where any who didn't have good prospects could hope to make their fortunes while honorably serving their rulers. The officers were mostly the younger children of the aristocracy, those who would not inherit titles or lands from their parents. By design, these officers were assigned to garrisons on planets other than their homes. This policy helped insure that the officers would be less likely to get involved in local affairs and could remain, at least theoretically, impartial. The soldiers moved from base to base, planet to planet, in rotation. The members of the Silver Army usually eventually married people from planets other than their planet of origin, thus forming blood links between the different cultures and peoples of the Alliance.
The second level of the military hierarchy was the Planetary Knights. These warriors were the personal retainers and guardians of the royal families. The number of Knights differed from planet to planet and from time to time. They were generally nobles, mainly the elder sons and daughters of the most powerful families on the planet. To have been a Planetary Knight was a sign of honor. It also guaranteed the loyalty of the nobles because each Knight swore an oath to the reigning monarch; an oath steeped in magic that bound them firmly to the throne.
There were also Knights who earned their ranks through merit. It was these Knights who did the real work of defending the different monarchies. They generally came up through the ranks of the Silver Army; therefore they weren't necessarily from the planet whose thrones they were pledged to protect.
The third and highest level of the hierarchy was the one that bound the individual planetary monarchies to the Moon Kingdom: the Sailor Scouts. The planetary princesses were sworn to serve as guardians to Serenity, which ever Serenity was in her generation. They would wield the powers of the planets in service to the Silver Throne.
In that manner, every warrior in the Solar System was loyal to Queen Serenity directly or indirectly."
"But what about the Earth?" Zoë asked, "There was no princess to swear to the Moon Kingdom's ruler."
Percy shrugged. "The Earth was the newest member of the Alliance. Even though the Moon orbits this planet, the Earthlings refused to join the Alliance for millennia. In fact, the governments of the Earth and the Silver Alliance were still working out the details of loyalties when Beryl and her army attacked. You must remember that it hadn't been all that long, only a few hundred years, that the Earth had had a planetary government. Before the founding of Endymion's Golden Kingdom, the Earth had been covered by hundreds of little, constantly warring kingdoms." Zoë nodded thoughtfully.
"All this talk of hierarchies is giving me a headache," Lita complained, "What does this have to do with our current problems?" She climbed to her feet and began to pace restlessly.
"The old allegiances may not have much relevance now," Luna said, "but if we could find out if this Hermes is really one of the Mercurian Knights, then we might be able to find a weakness that we can exploit. Maybe the old link to the Mercurian throne will be strong enough to over throw Negaverse control if we can find a way to activate it." The black cat stared of into space as she tried to dredge up her own fractured memories of the Silver Millennium, hoping to find some other bit of information that could be useful.
"It is also important because the Knights who could use mystic powers, and not all could, were generally the most powerful magic wielders in the system. Some could even match the powers of the Sailor Scouts." Perseus's face was set in grim lines that showed how the flesh had sunk in around his eyes and along his cheek bones, signs of his great age that were usually hidden.
Raye and Serena came dragging back into the room. They were both clearly exhausted, with leaves stuck in their hair. Serena collapsed to the floor. Raye looked at her disgustedly and sat down to start picking the debris out of her raven locks.
Molly shook her head at the spectacle before asking, "What are we going to do now?"
"Wait." Cassie put down her notebook. Her face was set in that cool, professional look that she put on whenever she was working on a particularly tough, or dangerous, problem.
"Why wait?" Raye asked impatiently as she tugged at a particularly stubborn twig, "What have you girls been discussing?"
"We have to wait to make any specific plans because we don't have enough information about General Hermes to make any decsions concerning him. We don't know who he is working for, what his agenda is, or how he is connected to Mercury." Cool gray eyes focused on empty space for a moment before Cassie shook herself and continued. "I think that this Hermes isn't just any Knight. He seems familiar somehow."
Mina sighed loudly, "I'll guess we'll just have to wait until he makes another move." The group of girls was silent for awhile; each caught up in their own thoughts.
"Why," Molly asked, "do these Negaverse villains take over humans? Why don't they just use youma or whatever?"
"When Beryl took me and the other Guardians, she did it to hurt Endymion and because she needed our knowledge of warfare and of the defenses of the Earth and Moon." Zoë answered softly.
"Then why would who ever is in charge need a Mercurian Knight? Mercury fell with the rest of the Silver Alliance," Artemis said, "For that matter, how would they even know who was a Knight? It's not like he would've been wearing a sign saying 'Look at me! I'm a reincarnated warrior from 25,000 years ago!'"
"Like Cassie said, we'll just have to wait and see," Mina answered.
"I hate this!" Serena exclaimed, "Will we never get to have even a few months of being normal teenagers? I don't want to fight another war!" Molly hugged her silently. Everyone was lost in their own thoughts, the silence broken only by the distant sound of someone raking in the temple courtyard.
After a time, Lita flopped back down to the floor. "Cassie! So when is your next date with Andrew?"
Mina chimed in, "Yeah, we need details girl!"
Cassie rolled her eyes to heaven, "Even if I did go out with Andrew again, there is no way that I would tell you anything! I don't need another escort!"
"Andrew?" Molly asked incredulously, "I didn't know that you were dating! And what do you mean by escort?"
"I'm not dating him," Cassie muttered under her breath. Zoë poked her in the ribs and grinned hugely. She leaned over and whispered to her friend, "Just keep telling yourself that!"
"You haven't heard?" Serena cheered up immediately with the prospect of spreading some juicy gossip. "Last weekend…"
The three cats curled up out of the way of the energetically gossiping girls. "Well," Luna sighed, "I guess that is the end of that meeting." Artemis grunted in agreement before closing his eyes for a nap.
"Let them be, youngling," Perseus said softly, "After all they are teenagers. Teenagers upon whom a lot of responsibility has been placed, but teenagers none the less."
Next Time on Sailor Moon: Serenity's Court
Peace seems to have settled over Tokyo for a while, but how long can it last? And more importantly, will CrossRoads High win the big game? Find out in: Party Crashers!
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