Book, Staff, and Spirit Productions
Welcomes you to:
Sailor Moon L(ovecraft)
A Fusion with concepts from the writings of H.P. Lovecraft.
Episode 2.7
The King in Yellow, part 3
Pluto Planet Power, Make-up
Note: Understanding this story requires no prior knowledge of H.P. Lovecraft or any of his writings. It does, however require a fair bit of knowledge of the anime series Sailor Moon. Like you'd be here if you didn't already have that.
This story takes place after Sailor Moon S. It can be considered an alternate universe, since it takes the place of Sailor Moon Super S.
17
KRACKABLAM!!
The song stopped, the pain subsided, and the beginning of bubbles in Rei's flesh disappeared. She gasped in relief and dropped to her knees. They weren't particularly steady anyway.
She looked up a couple of seconds later, when she could uncross her eyes again. There was a large hole in the middle of the forehead of the entity wearing Haruna-sensei's face. Slowly, it dropped to its knees, then fell face down in the middle of the sidewalk.
As her vision continued to return, she noticed Sailor Jupiter and Sailor Venus staggering to their feet behind the being. A quick glance to her right showed Iain slowly uncurling from a fetal position and hesitantly removing his hands from his ears.
"What hap-" Crack! His eyes rolled up in his head as a woman (whose long purple hair hide her face from Rei) stepped up behind him and slammed a pistol butt into the back of his head. Rei gaped ineffectually. The woman nodded approvingly at her handiwork.
"There. Now you can transform with him seeing."
With that, the woman turned and looked at Rei. Rei gaped. "Misato-san?"
Her teacher and hero gave her a quick grin. "Yup, that's me. Now come on, change. Even a silver bullet in the head won't stop that thing for long."
Rei opened and closed her mouth a couple times. Then someone smacked her in the back of the head. Behind her, the voice of her biology teacher, Akagi Ritsuko, said, "Come on, Sailor Mars, get a move on. I just saw the King twitch."
Rei started to turn around and look at Ritsuko, but then saw Haruna's body move its head. She decided it was probably time to change—especially seeing as Jupiter and Venus were just gaping at Misato and Ritsuko.
"MARS STAR POWER, MAKE-UP!"
"Impressive."
She turned and looked at Ritsuko, who seemed to be making notes on some sort of hand held computer. Then Haruna's body started pushing itself up.
Misato grabbed Iain. "Time to leave. Follow us." She spun and started running. Ritsuko followed. When Venus and Jupiter reached Mars, glancing nervously in between the running figures and the twitching body, Mars shrugged. "I think we better follow."
So they did.
18
Meiou Setsuna moaned as she woke up. Everything was fuzzy. "Wha' ha'ned...?"
"Here Setsuna, drink this."
She recognized Michiru's voice, and swallowed the warm liquid that was offered. Once it was gone, she sighed and closed her eyes. "Don't worry," she interrupted. "I'm not passing out again."
After a moment, Setsuna sat up. Slowly. Looked around, and saw that things weren't going particularly well. Ami's eyes were red and puffy from crying, and Usagi kept glaring at a boy in the corner. Setsuna blinked, and was surprised to see that the boy was Urawa Ryo. Michiru and Haruka was sitting on the coffee table looking at her. "So what's the deal, Setsuna?" Haruka asked.
Setsuna sighed. "I can't get into the future."
Everyone looked at her confusedly.
She sighed again, this time in irritation. "The Time Gate won't take me even one second farther into the future than when I accessed it. I've spent the last three days trying. I can go anytime into the past, but not into the future at all."
"That's bad, isn't it?" Usagi asked.
"Yes, Usagi. That's extremely bad. We have no guidance now. Whatever it is that's happening, it isn't matching what is supposed to happen. I went to Crystal Tokyo after we dealt with those cultists and checked; there was never any attack by Byahkee, and we never had anything to do with a cult at all."
"Wait a second! What are you talking about?" Ami burst out, then shrank back a little as the Outer Scouts turned and looked at her.
Even though they were irritated, Michiru quickly explained. By the time she was done, Usagi was irritated. "Why didn't you tell me about this? Why didn't Mamo-chan tell me about this?"
Haruka rolled her eyes. "We didn't want to worry you, Odango-atama. You have enough on your mind with school-"
"NO!" Everyone jumped and looked at Usagi, who looked both angry and on the verge of tears. "I am the Princess. And whatever is happening, we're going to deal with it, and I'm still going to be Queen someday. When we are attacked, I will be notified!"
There was silence for a moment, and then Setsuna nodded. "I apologize, Your Highness." She sighed. "I don't think telling you would have made any difference in our present situation, though." She looked at Urawa. "Hello, Urawa-kun. Why don't you come over and tell me why you're here?"
Urawa blinked in surprise and hesitantly walked over and sat on the couch next to her. "How...How do you know my name?"
Setsuna chuckled. "Urawa-kun, you have visions of the future. I'm the Guardian of Time. I know a lot about you."
He paled. "Oh."
She laughed outright, this time. "I don't, however, know why these four brought you to my house at such an inopportune time."
So Urawa described his vision.
By the end, it was Setsuna who was pale.
19
They finally stumbled into some sort of lab in the basement of the school.
"We should be okay here," Misato said as Venus placed her on her feet. Jupiter put Iain on a convenient counter, while Mars put down Ritsuko. Senshi, even Senshi carrying people, can run a lot faster than normal humans.
Reinard Megumi, Rei's choir teacher, walked into the room looking at a pile of printouts and said, "Oh, hello Rei," when she glanced at the people in the room. The Senshi blinked in surprise.
A moment later, a young woman none of them recognized rushed in and ran over to Ritsuko. "How did it go? Are you alright, Sempai?"
Ritsuko smiled. "I'm fine, Maya. It went very well. We have three of the Senshi here." Maya blinked and looked at them.
"Oh," she sniffed disappointedly. "I was hoping one would be Ami."
The Senshi shook their heads in amazement.
Then from behind them, came the voice of their English teacher, Randolf Carter. "I see you all survived your encounter with the King." He looked extremely relieved, but even so, the small man's eyes kept darting nervously to the door, as if he were afraid they were followed.
The Senshi turned and stared at him for a bit. Finally, Mars pulled herself together, and said, "What...? How...? What the heck is the King you people keep mentioning?"
"The King in Yellow," Ritsuko said. "Here, have a seat. Maya, wake that young man up, would you please?"
Maya nodded and set about doing that.
In the mean time, Ritsuko continued as the Senshi sat gingerly on some stools. "The King in Yellow is the avatar of an incredibly powerful entity that currently exists on a planet circling the star Aldebaran. His mission here is to prepare for the coming of that entity, Hastur. He's also known among his followers as He Who is Not to Be Named. However, the King in Yellow is no weakling itself; its most powerful ability is the Song of Hastur, which you almost experienced... Mars."
Iain was groaning and sitting up. "What the heck happened? I've got a headache... Are you the Sailor Senshi?" He boggled a little at the three attractive girls in short skirts.
Mars nodded at him, and then turned back to Ritsuko. "Continue, Ritsuko-san."
Instead, Carter started to speak. "We believe there is a counter-song to the Song of Hastur. We know that it can be used to counter itself, but learning and singing it tends to drive people insane. Our expert on the Music of the Spheres, Megumi, is researching the counter-song. You four are going to need to stay here tonight, where we have some measures of defense against the King in Yellow. It won't be safe for you out there until Megumi has taught you the counter-song."
The Senshi exchanged glances. Iain just kept boggling.
Venus shrugged. "As de facto leader when Sailor Moon's not here, I say we stay. That... that thing-" She paused and took a deep breath. "That thing wearing Haruna-sensei's face wasn't even aiming the Song at us, and we couldn't do anything except cover our ears and cry." She swallowed hard.
Jupiter nodded, looking pissed. "Yeah. I think we're gonna have to stay here." She looked at Ritsuko and Carter. "What kind of defenses do you have, exactly?"
The exchanged glances. "Effective ones," Ritsuko said. "Let's leave it at that. Come on, I'll show you where you can stay."
Iain was still boggling as they all left the room.
20
Beep, beep, beeeeeep.
"It's no good," Usagi said as she worriedly looked at her communicator. "They just aren't answering."
"The signal doesn't seem to be getting through," Ami said, working on her computer.
Setsuna sighed. "Well, we'll just have to hope they are safe somewhere. I think, however, for Urawa's safety, we had better all stay here until we figure out what to do."
"Oh, great. One of those days." Usagi made a face. She hated telling lies to her parents. She went and called her parents to tell them she'd be staying at Ami's house for the night. Ami didn't need to call her mom, since Ms. Mizuno was away at a conference.
"It must be hard to have you're mom gone so much, Ami," Usagi said later, as they all settle down to a very quiet meal.
Ami shrugged. "It gets a little lonely, sometimes. If it's not some conference, it's over time at the E.R. or the Children's Center. She works so hard to help people though. And I have Pen-Pen to keep me company." She frowned. "I hope he can manage himself for a night." Then she shrugged and smiled. "Anyway, I'm very proud of my mom. I hope I can do as well someday."
"You'll do fine, Ami." Usagi probably would have gone on, but Michiru had just served her, and she was already inhaling her food.
Ami chuckled faintly. Urawa just stared at his food.
21
Reinard Megumi stared at all her notes, her computer, her numerous sources in her research of the counter-song scattered around her desk.
"You've got to be kidding me," she told them.
Then she laughed faintly. "I guess it makes sense though... Sorta."
She got up and went to tell Ritsuko. As she walked, she laughed again. "The song's the thing, wherein we'll catch the powers of the King."
22
Chiba Mamoru was out on a late night walk. It was nearly one in the morning, but that didn't bother him. He'd just finished an essay for his contemporary author's course, and he felt like a little fresh air before he visited the lands of slumber. And so it was that he was passing Setsuna's house just in time to see the figure of a boy crawl out a window and tumble onto the lawn. He blinked in surprise. That's unusual, he thought to himself.
He paused to watch as the boy got up, dusted himself off, and walked toward the street. Mamoru glanced along the line of the boy's path, and saw a dark figure in the shadows of a house across the street.
The boy walked up to the figure, and seemed to simply stand there. Mamoru frowned, watching the pair, then jumped as the boy suddenly shouted, "Oh, SHIT!"
Mamoru rushed toward the two—
Then blinked, as they were suddenly gone. This bodes not well, he thought, and quickly moved over to Setsuna's door. As he knocked, he transformed into Tuxedo Kamen.
23
Several minutes later, half a dozen soldiers for love and justice pored out of Setsuna's front door, if you count Tuxedo Kamen. Mercury sounded frantic as she stared at her computer and whispered, "Scanning, scanning, scanning, sca- Got it! This way." She took off at a run, going so fast it was almost unsafe, considering she was still looking at her computer screen. The others followed, after exchanging grim glances.
After several minutes of twisting and turning, Mercury suddenly came to a screeching halt. She was very, very pale.
"It's gone..." she whispered in shock. "His life signature is gone."
Oh, shit, thought Uranus. Here it comes.
Suddenly there was a loud beeping whine from the computer, making them all jump. Ami stared at it for a second, then said, "Some... some sort of incredible... energy signatures at the same coordinates Urawa was... Its more powerful than Wiseman, more than Mistress Nine, almost as powerful as Beryl was when Metallia was in her...!"
"Shit. I hope it's friendly," Uranus said.
They resumed their journey.
24
Gendo Ikari sat in his office, his white gloved hands clasped in front of his face. After a moment, Fuyutsuki walked in.
"The King has taken another victim," the old man said.
"Hmm."
"This one gave him an exceptional burst of power. The victim had the ability to see the future, apparently."
"Hmm."
"He can probably affect a major portion of the city with the Song, now."
"I hope the counter-song works, then." Gendo finally articulated a reply.
"So do I."
There was a sound behind them, and the turned to behold Trunks, bleeding and beaten, a sword covered in dark, viscous liquids in one hand, and a crystal the size of a man under his other arm.
Finally, Gendo smiled. Or at least smirked. "You're mission went well, I see?"
Trunks grunted, and walked by them, out of the room.
25
A nice large parking lot out in from of a supermarket was where the computer led them. At one in the morning, there were no cars in it. Very convenient.
There was a short figure, looking down at an indistinct shape on the ground. They all stopped at the edge of the lot, and Uranus yelled out, "Hey, you! Turn around and show us your face!"
The figure's head rose, and then, sure enough, it turned around and stepped into the circle of a streetlight. Urawa smiled at the Sailor Senshi.
"Urawa!" Ami cried joyfully, and started to rush forward. Then she was jerked back as someone grabbed her arm. She looked at Neptune in surprise. "What are you doing?"
"Take another look at him, Mercury," Neptune said gently.
Mercury turned and looked at him again. She blinked when she saw that his clothes were yellow, even they other than that they looked exactly the same. And the she looked closer at his face. Despite the mediocre light, she could see that there was something wrong with his face. His smile was grotesque.
"What's wrong, Ami?" Urawa said, with a strangely hollow sounding voice.
She stared in horror at the boy standing before her. "You aren't Urawa!"
"Very astute," the entity said dryly.
Pluto stepped forward. She looked very tired as she said, "You're the King in Yellow, aren't you?"
"That would be one thing you could call me, yes."
Finally, Sailor Moon thought, as she stepped forward. "I can't allow you to harm any more people. That..." she trailed off for a moment, as she really thought about what she was about to say. "That was Ami's boyfriend, whatever difficulties they may have been having! And he was a friend to all of us!" She swallowed hard, and wondered if there was any way she'd be able to bring him back with the crystal. "What you've done is unforgivable! I am the Pretty Soldier in a Sailor Suit, Sailor Moon! In the name of the Moon, I'll punish you!"
"And I'm Sailor Mercury, guardian of love and wisdom! What you've done... I can't allow it to happen again!" Mercury was clearly on the verge of tears. "In the name of Mercury, I'll punish you!"
Neptune and Uranus exchanged glances and stepped forward to give their speeches. As Uranus opened her mouth, though, the King spoke. "Oh, good grief. I'm not about to be stopped, or punished, for that matter, by a bunch of magical girls." And with that, he began to sing.
With one voice, the Senshi shrieked as pain washed over their bodies. Tuxedo Mask gritted his teeth and launched some roses, but even though one went through the King's eye, the song didn't stop. He gasped and collapsed with the others.
Mercury's screams rose above the others' as she began to smoke. She could feel something horrendous, horrible... the flesh on her back was starting to boil. With extreme exertion of will, she managed to pry her eyes open and look at Sailor Moon, next to her. She was horrified to see Sailor Moon's face slowly melting.
And then new pain racked her body, and she could no longer even think.
C-kun: [Evil laugh.] This is called a mid episode dramatic break. Were this on TV, there would be a commercial break. Here, however, you can just view this as the screen fading to black, and then coming back up with a fresh look at the scene.
The five Sailor Soldiers and Tuxedo Kamen writhed in pain in a lonely nighttime parking lot, while the King in Yellow sang the Song of Hastur with a smile. Things were not looking good.
Then, out of the darkness, came another voice! A beautiful female voice, with strains of music backing it up. And this is what it sang:
"Just take those old records off the shelf,
I'll sit and listen to 'em by myself,
Today's music ain't got the same soul,
I like that old time rock and roll!"
The pain that was wracking the Senshi's bodies suddenly eased off. They all caught their breath, and started to pull themselves together. Out of the darkness stepped (you guessed it, I hope) Sailor Mars, with a small, portable karaoke machine.
"Don't try and take me to a disco,
You'll never even get me out on the floor,
In ten minutes I'll be late for the door,
I like that old time rock and roll!"
If the situation hadn't been so grim, she would have felt a little silly. But, it seemed to be working. From the darkness behind her, Sailor Jupiter and Sailor Venus made their presence known.
"VENUS LOVE-ME CHAIN!" The glowing chain of hearts flew out towards the surprised looking, but still singing King in Yellow.
"SPARKLING WIDE PRESSURE!" The ball of super charge lightning flashed out in into the chain, sending a massive jolt of electricity into the King at the same time the chain hit him in the chest, making a wet slapping sound. The King staggered, but then he grasped the chain and pulled it with a squelching sound out of his chest. He did this even as electricity still coursed through his body. And he was still singing.
Mars could feel some sort of incredible pressure on her mind, trying to get her to stop singing. She mentally gritted her teeth and kept singing.
"Still like that old time rock and roll,
That kind of music just soothes my soul,
I reminisce about the days of old,
With that old time rock and roll!"
"Sailor Moon! Now!" Tuxedo Mask shouted.
Sailor Moon nodded, though her eyes were watering from the pain in her face. She pulled out the Spiral Heart Moon Rod, and opened her mouth, when,
"NO!" came a cry behind her. She turned, and gasped. It was Sailor Pluto who had spoken, but her face... her face was scarred nearly beyond recognition. "Heal us, Sailor Moon," Pluto grated out, through the pain. "Or this will be permanent, and the pain will stay with us forever!"
Sailor Moon gulped, and grasped the Silver Crystal. "MOON HEALING ACTIVATION!" The light flowed over them all, and the last of the pain died away.
"Call me a relic call me what you will,
Say I'm old fashioned say I'm over the hill.
Today's music ain't got the same soul,
I like that old time rock and roll."
"And now," Pluto whispered. "I will deal with this menace."
The King in Yellow was concentrating on Mars, but he heard Pluto. His eyes flicked to her.
Pluto raised her staff and pointed the Time Garnet at him. "Pluto..." she whispered.
His eyes narrowed.
"Temporal..." she said, louder now.
His eyes widened.
"HELIX...!"
His eyes grew resigned.
"DISSOLUTION!" she screamed. The stars above started to distort, shift, spin, as a mass of greenish purple darkness suddenly was whirling in the sky above. Quickly, surprisingly quickly, a huge spinning tornado-like tendril of the darkness lashed down and engulfed the King in Yellow. They could still see him though the colored, shining darkness, but he seemed strangely distorted. Again, incredibly quickly, he started to dissolve, break apart, disassociate. The fragments of his body flew up into the sky, and in the blink of an eye, both he and Pluto's attack were gone.
And all was quiet, except for Mars's karaoke machine as she trailed off in shock.
"Still like that old time rock and roll,
That kind of music just soothes... my..."
The Senshi all stared at Pluto, who slumped tiredly. After a moment, she looked at Sailor Moon.
"I am the Guardian of Time, Your Highness. That requires incredible power- perhaps not as much as you can harness with the Silver Crystal, but close. I've never used any but my weakest attack because it was necessary for you to deal with our enemies for the future to turn out properly. But the King in Yellow was never in the timeline. We are in uncharted territories, and I will do whatever is necessary to ensure the future that you all have seen."
Then she turned and headed for her home.
The crazy of the world cried out, "THE KING IN YELLOW IS DEAD! LONG LIVE THE KING!"
And that, as they say, was that.
26
The dark shape that the King in Yellow had been staring at was Urawa's real body. Faceless. Mercury cried long after she had changed back into Ami.
As the sun rose, a pair of bloodshot eyes watched it wearily from an empty classroom in SGN High. After a time, Iain whispered. "I was useless again. Why, Chris? Why?"
He stared at the glowing white long sword in his hands and cried.
Deep in the secret basements underneath the school, Professor Washu grinned as a man sized crystal cracked, then shattered, leaving a confused, gasping blonde man behind as it crumbled to the floor.
And light years away, on a planet orbiting the star Aldebaren, in a city called Carcosa, next to the Lake of Hali, an entity known as Hastur the Unspeakable laughed.
THE END
Authors Notes: Oh, yeah! I am pumped about this chapter. Things are heating up in Sailor Moon L. This is the revision of episode 2.7. My pre-reader finally got his rear in gear and looked over everything.
I hope my teasers for the next episode have done their job. I might let you know a little about Iain's past next time. He is actually a character from another set of (really bad) stories I've written on and off over the years. Maybe, someday, I'll put them up. As for the other teaser, I'm hoping you can figure it out. ;)
I'd like to thank everyone who's given me a positive review so far (all four of you). It's nice to think that someone out their likes my writing, even if it is rather esoteric.
Disclaimer: None of these characters belong to me, except for Iain. He does, and so do the situations the characters are in, as well as the overall story.
And if I've offended anyone, I'm sorry.
This story is Copyright 2002 by C-kun and Book, Staff, and Spirit Productions.
