Chapter four – Nemeton
A general who listens to my calculations, and uses them, will
surely be victorious, keep him; a general who does not listen
to my calculations, and does not use them, will surely be
defeated, remove him.
Sun Tzu, The Art of War
Monday 17th June 1991
It's a strange feeling waking up in someone elses bed, especially when the someone elses bed is the senshi of time. That and I keep finding long dark hairs. * giggle * Seriously though being at Haruka and Michiru's makes nice change, not to mention the use of there hot tub is good too. Setsuna has had to return back to Clarion Castle to maintain her watch over the time stream and watching over Hotaru is an easy job, her being a rather quiet girl at the best of times, that and given the chance will sleep in as long as me. (Michiru comments that she takes after Haruka in that respect, glad to here there is at least three sane people in our group.) Still it makes me feel better, as much I hate to admit it, I miss the little spore Chibi-Usa at times like this. I still catch myself saying "I must show small lady this.." and then realise she's not here anymore. Perhaps she will come back and visit sometime, or perhaps I have to wait until I give birth * Shiver * to her.
Hotaru misses her too, it has been really hard on her, growing up so fast and she has no friends outside of the senshi. I cannot fault Haruka, Michiru and Setsuna's for that, educating her at home is the only way to deal with her at the moment, how do you explain to teachers that the six year old you had yesterday is now an eleven year old today. That and the accerated growth has left the none-senshi form rather weak and sickly. None of us goes near her when we have a cold for fear of hurting her more. Ami commented how ever that her growth rate seems to returned to normal, I think another year and they may try to slip her into 7th grade class. Anyway this is the last day of my care she has to put up with, Professor Tomoe has returned from UK and wants to spend some time with his daughter.
Professor Tomoe Souichi thankfully is not the same man as he was. Injuries and a nervous breakdown left him frankly a bit of a mess. But over the past year he's picked himself up. He has spent last six months in the UK working for a university over there, UMIST I think I was told, seems a damn strange name for a place but hey its English and I have enough problems with Japanese. Anyhow, Hotaru's going to spend the rest of the time until Haruka and Michiru return, apparently Michiru is getting lots of attention stateside, although they assured me that they will be back for next Saturday.
Eeekk where's the time gone time for us both to be up, * Yawn * time to get moving I guess.
"Paaaappppa!" screamed Hotaru as she leapt into her fathers arms, kissing him seriously on the face.
Souichi laughed at his daughter's exuberance and hugged her close to him.
"Hotaru my little wonder how are you, I am sorry to have been away so long."
"Its alright papa, I know you have to travel to get work, Haruka-papa, Michiru-mama look after me well."
Usagi slowly walked up to the reunited pair, to give them a little space and take in the scene, Professor Tomoe had put some weight on since she last saw him and it looked like he had been working out a little as well. The signs were that the few past years had been left behind.
"Professor Tomoe." She greeted him, with a respectful bow.
"Ms Tuskino" he replied. Then came over and hugged the surprised Usagi.
"Messiah." He whispered into her ear.
"I told you not to call me that!" she said giving him a playful slap across his chest.
"Owch" he said rubbing his chest. "You been working out too!"
"A little." She smiled.
Hotaru came over and wrapped her arms around her father's waist, Souichi absently began to stroke his hand though his daughter's hair.
"Well girls would you like a little lunch!"
"Yes, Pappa, Usagi-chan did not get me early enough for breakfast."
Usagi flushed, "Perhaps Hotaru-chan did not get me up early enough for breakfast!"
"Come on then, let find you girls a late breakfast or early lunch then."
They began walking down the street towards a small cluster of shops.
"How was your journey home?" asked Usagi politely.
"22 hours on a plane is not my idea of fun, I have to admit, that and the nine hour time difference is a bit hard to deal with, its good to be home though."
"How's your English doing papa?"
"Very well actually, I got to do some socialising in England, a few of my second year students decided it was there job to introduce me to the pleasures of the country. Which seemed to consist I must admit of various types of beer and Manchester United football club, oh and a very strange food stuff called 'a curry' which seems to be only eaten after consuming a large quantity of beer." He frowned, "it seems strange to me that people should enjoy eating food so hot, it causes them pain. But they are a happy and friendly people, if a little strange. Lets go in here." He said leading them into a café.
For the next hour and a half, Usagi and Hotaru eased there hunger and heard all about England and the work Souichi had been doing. After committing some serious damage to his wallet, the three headed for the park, for a rest and to play on the swings.
"So what's your plans for the future?" asked Usagi as she sat down on a bench.
"Well, while I was away, to government decided it was not my fault about the damaged caused at the Institute, a build up of gas in fault caused by earthquake damage they said it was." A disbelieving look passed between the two of them. "So all insurances were paid out, being the 'owner' of the institute I received a large pay out of about 500 million Yen (that's about 5 million UKP, I assume 100 yen = 1 UKP) I am going to buy a small house and try and re-build my life here." He looked at Hotaru playing of the swings, "I have a second chance, thanks to you and your friends and I have some serious debts to pay off."
Usagi, looked him in the eye and put her hand on his,
"Now there is no talk of debts between friends. I did what I because it was righ….." her head snapped to the left, looking towards the park, having a sensation that said "Something evil this way comes!" Hotaru's face also turned to look the same way and with a grinding noise brought her swinging to a halt and ran over to were they were sitting.
"You feel that too." She asked. Usagi grimy nodded. Then the sound of screaming could be heard.
"What's happening." Asked Souichi, confused.
"I don't know, but wait here." And then they both ran towards the screams.
Emerging though a set of woodland and bushes they saw the cause of the screams, it was a creature. Well that seemed to be only way to describe it thought Usagi, standing about 4 meters tall, it had two legs, two arms and head, but that was about it, it seemed to shimmer and shift its colour changed and faded, extra bits of ornamentation, armour, spikes etc faded in and out. It made a sound of many different creatures roaring. As they arrived it caught a young woman who was running away, it caught her and held her up, moments later a mist rose from the woman which was sucked into the beast, who then dropped the body and started after the next victim a small girl to frighten to move.
Without thinking about it, Usagi summoned one of the energy disks and threw it at the beast, it caught in the arm reaching for the child, and with a roar it turned around looking around for who hurt it. A brave young woman too the opportunity to snatch the child out of the beasts way and to run as fast away as she could.
"Hotaru, Shift" she commanded.
Shifting, is the term Ami attached to there transformations between normal form and senshi form. To the outside viewer in less than a second an image appears overlaying the person who is there, which the person then morphs into that image. To the person it seems to last a lot longer, as they pull the image of form they want to be to themselves, and the rush that comes as they attach to the magic and physical power reserve that is tapped to allow them to become sailor senshi. At times Usagi hated being sailor moon, but she could not deny the rush she got from becoming sailor moon.
A moment later Usagi and Hotaru were gone and in their place Sailor moon and Sailor Saturn stood and then started running down towards the beast during this run sailor moon triggered an all call – senshi in battle from her communicator. The beast reacted immediately by throwing an arm in there direction and suddenly the air was full of various things from knifes, ice shards, balls of fire, bowling ball sized rocks.
"Silence wall" Called Saturn, Sailor moon wisely ducking behind her. The storm lasted a full 10 seconds.
"Hells bells what was that." Committed moon.
"Trouble." Comment Sailor Saturn, grimy.
Quickly sprinting around the debris pile they saw that beast had caught up with the escaping woman and child and moments later and was busy sucking the life force out of them..
"NOOOOO," cried Moon, pulling out the eternal tier from her subspace pocket.
"THERAPY KISS" launching her most powerful attack at the beast.
The beast roared with pain at it hit, a blizzard of dust blew back from the beast but still stood there and returned fire with another barrage, Sailor moon and Saturn had to run around dodging the attacks.
"ICE JAVELIN" came the call as a 3-meter rod of ice spiked the creature though the back. Again a blizzard of dust came from the beast and the javelin fell to the ground.
"Mercury!" Called moon. Mercury was the fastest Senshi when transformed and normally the first on scene. "Give us some cover!"
"SHABON SPRAY" and promptly the area around the beast was covered in dense fog.
Mercury ran over to other two senshi.
"Mercury what the fuck is that thing, it took my therapy kiss without falling into little bits!"
Mercury's, visor appearing as she stared intently into the fog, "Interesting."
The beast came out the fog, roaring!
"SILENCE GLAIVE SURPRISE" said Saturn; another blizzard of dust blew way from the creature as it staggered back from the impact of the attack.
"Sailor moon, Sailor Saturn it's a Gestalt creature."
"What that's that when its at home!" said Saturn
"Never mind for now, just keep hitting it, lesser attacks will do just keep hitting it!"
"Ok, MOON FRISBEE"
"SHABON SPRAY FREEZING"
"GLAIVE SLASH"
"MOON HALATION"
"SHABON SPRAY FREEZING"
"GLAIVE SLASH"
"MOON FRISBEE"
"SHABON SPRAY FREEZING"
"MOON HALATION"
"GLAIVE SLASH"
"SHABON SPRAY FREEZING"
"GLAIVE SLASH"
"MOON HALATION"
"SHABON SPRAY FREEZING"
"GLAIVE SLASH"
"MOON FRISBEE"
With the final Frisbee severing the creature at its head it finally crumbed into dust. The senshi stood for a few moments panting. Moon finally raised her communicator to her lips.
"Cancel all call, threat dealt with, conference on communicators when we have cleaned up here and I have my breath back. Mercury cover us if you can."
Fog suddenly rose from everywhere in the park dropping visibility down to less than a meter. Raising her hand Sailor moon called.
"MOONLIGHT BLINDING FLASH"
A pulse of light burst from her hand and flashed over the area, garbling or wiping the memories of people in the area about the events that had just happened. She dropped her hand and shifted back to Usagi and fell to her knees, Ami and Hotaru followed suit and joined her on the floor. They laid there for a few minutes as the fog cleared.
"Note to self, must keep up the with training." Commented Usagi, pulling a large bottle of sports drink from her subspace pocket and taking a long drink before passing it around the others.
"Ok, that was different! Lets go and find your dad and get out of here, before the authorities turn up asking questions." They got up headed out though the clearing fog, back towards were they left Souichi. As they emerged into the now quiet play park, Souichi stood looking pale faced towards the site of battle, looking seriously disturbed, standing beside him with one hand on his shoulder was Minako, Artemis sat at his feet stroking his leg with his head.
"Is it one of mine!" He demanded.
Ami smiled "No! It's a problem from before your time." That statement caused a look of confusion on everyones faces.
"So Ami what was it?" Asked Usagi.
Ami scratched her head and looked somewhat embarrassed.
"Well the best I can tell you that was group of Youma's, that had seemed to have merged together into one large gestalt entity. But I would say that's impossible, two things cannot exists at the same time in the same place, so it does not make sense."
"In conventional 4-dimensional space, no it wouldn't" commented Professor Tomoe, "but in 11-dimensional space those rules do not apply."
"Yes but do we live in an 11 dimension universe, I thought that was unproven?"
"But from the facts you have, show that we exists in a universe with more that 4 dimensions so why not 11."
"It could be more than 11!"
Usagi, put both fingers in her mouth at this point and blew a loud whistle
"Hang on you two, we can ague about this later. Preferably when I am not around, so my ears don't start bleeding when you start using all those big words." She turned to Minako and Artemis." You two had better get down there and find out what being said."
"You got it boss." Said Minako smiling and with a jokey salute, shifted to Sailor V, a form much better suited to covert operations, Artemis jumped on to her shoulder and with a nod to Usagi, she and Artemis turned invisible.
"Right lets get out of here before we have to deal with the police as well."
'Having two science geeks together is a bad move.' Thought Usagi as she and Hotaru were hammering their way though there 3rd game of "Sailor V – Quest for the Princess"
Ami and Professor Tomoe had spent the past four hours sitting at the kitchen table at Professor Tomoes house, going over the information on the Mercury computer had collected and now had started writing down all sorts of things on two large pads of paper. The conversation was now officially so far over Usagi and Hotaru's head that the only way they could be anywhere near it would be to be in the Space shuttle.
Just as Usagi and Hotaru were delivering a severe beating to the End of level boss, when Usagi's communicator went off. Jabbing the pause button on the console, she answered.
"Hello Minako"
"Where are you?" came the voice back. 'No image available' message appeared on the screen.
"At Tomoes house."
"Join you in a few minutes then, open a back door will you!"
"You got it."
"Oh tell Luna where you are, next time will you, she's bending Arty's ear about finding you."
"Ok, see yah!"
"Luna your still a worry wart even after all these years!" commented Usagi under her breath and headed for the kitchen.
"Worked out anything yet, I can understand?" she asked as she passed the two scientists and opened the back door.
Ami and Souichi looked up at her, blinked a couple of times, looked back at what they were doing and then they both flushed red.
Rubbing the back of his head Souichi admitted, "Er we came up with a theory about two hours ago."
Usagi, folded her arms, started tapping her foot and stared at the two of them, both of them flushed redder still.
"And?" she asked.
Ami and the professor began to explain there theory about Queen Beryl's Youma's, that were kept in an alterative dimension or dimensions. Since the defeat of Queen Beryl these creatures had become effectively cut off from the outside universe. In an attempt to escape, 20 or so of these creatures combined themselves into one creature, which with its combined energy, allowed it to escape to normal space. This was somewhat backed up by the trace energy signature of a dimensional gate in the park. The thought was that it then tried to gather life energy from humans around it so that they could then split up again and become 20 individual creatures.
At that point Sailor V/ Minako appeared in the kitchen, she confirmed a death toll of six dead and four injured. The police were of course mystified on the causes of death, Rei and Yuuichiro were down among the "victims" on offering tea and comfort where they could. Mamoru and Makoto were wandering around the crowd scooping out what people knew and felt.
Business as normal in other words. Trying to keep a secret like this from the world was a full time job, not to mention a damn dangerous one.
At the end of Minako's report, Usagi was as ever in tears. People had died and she could not prevent it. What was worse was the fact there was nothing she could have done to prevent it and she knew that, but that did not make it any better.
Usagi always cried for the dead, be they friends, enemies or the innocent bystander. Minako, Ami and Hotaru did what the senshi always did, they wrapped there arms around their beloved princess and surrounded her in warmth and love and cried along with her.
Professor Tomoe Souichi or Tom as he was known back in Manchester. Turned away from the emotional scene and stared out of the window, moments later the first drops of an early evening rain storm.
"Kami, " he thought, "even the weather reacts to her!"
Thoughts of the past few years flashed though his mind, his wife death, his fall from grace in the scientific community, Hotaru's near fatal accident, scatted memories of being possessed by a daimon, working to being about the silence, the blasted memories of injuries suffered at the end, and the brief lose of sanity. Recovery, healing and new acceptance followed. As the rain began to pour down, thought and emotion brought forth the last part required souls recovery. Redemption.
As the rain continued, the rain of tears lessened and stopped, the others had moved away and Usagi sat on a chair staring at the rain. Souichi came over his face reddened with tears also and kneeled in front of her taking one of Usagi's hands in his own.
"Princess, is there no way this humble man can make your load a little lighter?" He asked.
Usagi smiled, "Perhaps you can explain why rain falls, in away even I can understand." Distracting herself from what had gone before. "I know, I will make you first scientific advisor to Crystal Tokyo, after Sailor Mercury of course." She said directing a quick smile in Ami's direction who returned it.
"I would be honoured and would except happily!" as he thought to himself 'I would swear my life to her she did.'
"Done, " she said, "bear in mind your helping with my homework from now on." And with a slight laugh kissed him on the forehead.
At that point a flash of thunder crashed across the sky, the rumble shook the windows in the house. The noise made everyone jump. Professor Tomoe passed out on the floor.
With a glowing golden crescent moon on his forehead.
Saturday 22ed June 1991
"Honored senshi, Honored advisors lets get on with this meeting, so that we can eat Makoto-chan's dinner without guilt. We have much to discuss, of your ideas about threats brought to our attention by Setsuna-chan and events of the past three weeks. Finally I welcome Professor Tomoe, to our small select group, as the first new royal advisor for 12,000 years so Luna tells me." She bowed slightly to the rather confused looking Professor, "Souichi do not be afraid to speak up and don't be afraid to ask questions. We have been doing this sort of thing for over two years now and tend to make assumptions. Perhaps your input will make clear up some of the stuff that makes my ears bleed." A quiet snigger passed around the group. "Ok then who what's to go first?"
Ami stood up and launched into her presentation about the Gestalt Yoma, they had destroyed last Monday. The GY as she called it, was indeed a combination of 20 single Yoma into one creature. This single creature was then strong enough to open a portal between the Queen Beryl's 'storage' domain and this one. Due to the rather unintelligent way it attacked, it was guessed that it was one of the beast like foot solder type that made up that particular GY. The down side to that was the fact that Beryl would probably had millions of these creatures to hand for when she finally defeated the senshi. This lead to the rather uncomfortable question of this being a one-off, so where there 1000's more waiting to cross over.
Haruka asked if was possible to carry out a pre-emptive strike against this dimension? Ami commented that finding out dimensional co-ordinates would be difficult that and then travelling to that dimension would be risky if not impossible to do. (Professor Tomoe looked like he been kicked in the head at this point, these people were talking about doing the scientifically impossible as if it was nothing at all.) Mamoru asked if possible to research the possibility never the less. "Blowing them up there is a whole lot more convenient than blowing them up here and we can make as much of a mess there as we like and we don't have to worry about collateral damage!"
Ami then started talking about Usagi's latest changes. Ami's conclusion was the fact it is part of a natural evolution, in the process that merges, Usagi, Sailor moon and Neo-princess into one person. The other comment was that this may happen to the rest of them as time goes on. With no comments from the others she moved on to her first thoughts.
"Uniform's" she said with a note of finality. "Hands up those of us are getting pissed of with cold legs and arms all the time, especially in winter, that and the lack of physical protection they give. The damn silly shoes and boots we wear. That and I have caught a couple of people trying to look up my skirt."
All the girls put their hands up.
"Leggings do not go well with them." Said Setsuna quietly. Unfortunately everyone heard and looked at her.
Even with her dark colouring she flushed badly, "Did I say that out loud. Well look you try hanging around a 20,000 year old castle were the outside temperature is –230 C and see how cold your legs get."
Banishing the image of Setsuna in neon pink legwarmers from her mind, Usagi spoke up "I take it that everyone agrees to that idea." Mamoru make a quiet comment about liking to see Sailor Moons legs, but he was ignored. "Any proposals Ami?"
At this point Ami, looked slightly embarrassed, "I have a few technical proposals I thought it would be useful for us all to have audio and video links, some sensor systems like those that are in Sailor moons and Sailor V's masks, perhaps some sort of night vision system. Other thing would be to have some decent armour in them, but as to the style, form and materials, I don't have any ideas."
"That's my forte." Commented Setsuna.
"I am not wearing pink!" said Haruka, staring at Setsuna. Michiru dug her elbow into Haruka's side. "Ow!"
Usagi, started rubbing her forehead. "Ok. Ami it sounds a good idea, my question is how?."
"That and security, "comment Minako "I know that our current communications are secure but that's using Silver Millennium technology can we make we be so sure about using current technology."
"Why not use Silver Millennium tech, surely there must be some caches of it left over?" commented Professor Tomoe.
"Very little." Commented Luna, "Myself and Artemis spent two years travelling around the planet after we awoke looking for equipment to help us. We found very little. We guess rising sea levels with the end of the last ice age, time and the efficacy of Beryl's attacks destroyed most of it."
"Not quite true, "said Setsuna, "a lot of tech did survive, but it was used up by the survivors here on Earth, I also removed a fair amount of it to prevent problems happening later on. Queen Serenity wanted Earth to evolve naturally perhaps in the hope it would do better than she."
"Does any of it still exist?" asked Makoto.
"All of the stuff I removed is in a large vault under the methane ice fields and to answer your next question, I have the heaters and atmosphere generators working to make them accessible to us now."
"Do we have any idea of what we have to play with?" asked Ami.
"I have a 10,000 year old list of what went in there, but whats working after all this time and the –50 C temperatures is anyone's guess."
"Should I bother asking why you kept this from us?" asked Minako.
Setsuna shook her head.
"More important question would be, would we have had the time?" Commented Mamoru.
"Good point, "Said Usagi, "Setsuna at a time of your earliest convenience, can you arrange for Ami, Souichi, Luna and Artemis to visit and take an audit of what we have, also "she smiled, "think you should start putting some thought into uniforms, since you have the best style sense of us all and in deference to Haruka, go easy on the pink. Ami do you have anything else to say." Ami shook her head. "Ok, Minako your next."
Minako started to describe her idea's, the first being the setting up of a second set of combat orientated identities with a different MO.
"If we have to deal with the CIA or MI5 and turn up in short skirts and tuxedos and blast them with lightening, fire and ice, they get a good idea of what we are, if however we turn up dressed in ninja and beat the crap out of them, we become one of several hundred organizations. Working this way we can deal with people sniffing around without having to break our own cover. Drop some evidence that they were getting to close to something else and with a bit of luck they will head of down that avenue and away from us."
This idea was approved of very quickly, due to everyone seeing it as a good idea and due to a quite of few people having secret fantasies about being a ninja. Although Luna was heard to mutter under her breath, "Teenagers."
Her second idea was more difficult, plausible deniability. Her idea was to use her mind changing abilities to put into the mind of say a film director about making a superhero film about five sailor suited women and a man in a tuxedo. Then people would see them and think of the film and see them as a publicity stunt.
The group was divided on that idea and commented if it was possible, if so how long the effect would last and want should be said. After about ten minutes of debate, Minako agreed to trying the idea out on a small scale first to see what would happen, perhaps a manga writer or newspaper cartoon strip.
Rei was next, but commented that Ami had Minako had already done two of her idea's and getting rid of those damn high heels she wore as Mars was the best idea yet. She did now ever put forward the idea of changing and improving the training they did and increasing the stealth aspects of it. Everyone agreed it was a good idea and Rei and Mamoru agreed to work on it.
Makoto again commented that her ideas had already been said, she did ask if they could find some better hand to hand weapons as the current set although good, were no really up to the job, noting her tendency to break them when she hit things a to hard. Setsuna committed at that point that she thought some SM weapons were in the cache of stuff on Pluto, perhaps they would be of some use. Ami promised that they would keep their eyes open.
Michiru and Haruka did a presentation on their idea about faking their own deaths and taking on new identities. Usagi agreed it was a good idea but commented that it would be a last resort idea, as some people did have families and at this stage would be hard to do. Setsuna commented that there were enough guest rooms for all the senshi at Charon Castle plus a quite a few more people as well. So just disappearing off the face of the planet was an option as well. Usagi said that idea may have some use to move families out of the line of fire, if things went seriously wrong and needed to be moved to a place of safety. Mamoru commented that it should be possible to find a safe place on Earth as well and would commit some time to discovering somewhere.
As a clock chimed six somewhere in the house, Usagi wound the meeting up.
"Everyone thank you, we have today put ourselves on a new path, were it will lead us, I do not know but I have a good feeling about it all. Lets see what the future brings. Makoto bring on the food!"
