Crystal Tears Chapter 9: A Time To Kill
by Aisuru
aisuru_chan@yahoo.com
*****
When Kunzite arrived at Jadeite's apartments to escort Amethyst to her first energy projection lesson, he found her asleep. Rather than waking her up, he wandered around Jadeite's apartments, intellectually interested in how Amethyst was faring on her own. The apartment still looked much like it had when Jadeite had been there, but with a few exceptions. The first thing Kunzite noticed was a large mythology book that was sitting on Jadeite's coffee table. It was opened to a picture of a unicorn. "I guess all little girls like unicorns," he muttered, and then wondered how he had known that earth girls like unicorns. The thought was quickly lost, Queen Beryl's mind control spell working as it should.
The second change to Jadeite's quarters was the broken state of a side table. One of the legs had been demolished by an energy projection of some sort, and the vase that had been on the table was missing. Kunzite concluded that Jadeite had broken the table himself in some fit of rage before his imprisonment, as the table had obviously been damaged by an energy projection, and Amethyst had not yet been trained in energy projection.
The girl slept on, so Kunzite took it upon himself to wake her. He called her name several times before she opened her eyes, blinking them to focus her bleary vision. "Why are you so tired? Have you been practicing your levitation or something?" he asked her.
Amethyst looked at him for a moment, not understanding the question, before remembering that she should be covering up the fact that she spent too much energy in the unicorn summoning and alteration, only to fail in her plan to destroy the Sailor Senshi. "Um, yeah, I was practicing levitation. I'm getting pretty good at it," she said in her best innocent little girl voice. 'I'm really going to have to work to hide my abilities today,' she remembered. 'I'm not supposed to be able to levitate much at all. I wonder what Kunzite would say if he knew what I could really do!' These thought brought her a moment of joy until she remembered what would really happen if the generals found out about her abilities -- Jadeite had warned her that they would kill her out of jealousy without a second thought. That sobered her up quickly.
"Well, lets get going," Kunzite said abruptly, shattering Amethyst's train of thought.
"Yes, sir," she said, getting out of bed and following him out of Jadeite's quarters.
*****
'I am no longer safe,' Amethyst thought, noting the glints of suspicion in the eyes of the Dark Kingdom citizens they passed. She struggled to keep up with General Kunzite's long, impatient stride.
Now there was only the sound of her tiny feet scurrying to keep up with the general in front of her, the thud of his heavy boots as he walked ahead of her, and the weighty silence of the Dark Kingdom citizens that stared at her with suspicion and an anger born in their fear of her.
Lost in her thoughts, Amethyst narrowly missed stumbling into General Kunzite when he suddenly stopped. "You must have something on your mind," he commented, his hands resting on her shoulders to steady her. They had walked past heavily armed guards, and the uneven black stone that covered most surfaces in the Dark Kingdom had yielded to gray and white marble as they entered a compound whose tasteful architecture and extravagant furnishing spoke of highly reverenced inhabitants.
"I have taken you to the general's own training hall," Kunzite told her when he noticed her surprise at her environment. "I noticed the looks you were getting from the other citizens. Jadeite was right in keeping you apart from the other citizens."
*****
Kunzite watched Amethyst closely as she aimed an energy projection at the target. The girl was clearly exhausted, which might explain why her aim was off, but it was obvious to Kunzite that she was trying to downplay her abilities. She did not have very good control of her energy beams, and the beams lacked power, which was what he had expected for a first lesson when energy projection was not a talent. What Kunzite noticed, however, was how finely focused and delicately created the energy was. Such focus was probably the result of a highly developed mind and experience with energy control, neither of which he expected Amethyst to have. In fact, the energy projections looked similar to those Zoicite made without the aid of a crystal.
"I've never seen anything like it, sir," the instructor said to Kunzite as another weak but beautifully crafter energy projection missed the target altogether. "Most beginning students throw all of their energy into their projections but have absolutely no focus. She has incredible focus, but no power!"
Kunzite only nodded. While she was missing the target, maybe on purpose to hide abilities, it appeared that so much of her energy was going into the intricate production of the energy projection that there was no energy left for an intense impact. 'It probably wouldn't have occurred to the child to make an unfocused energy projection to hide her skills,' Kunzite thought in amusement.
"Amethyst," Kunzite called.
The girl turned to look at him and the instructor, her white-purple hair swirling around her tiny frame like a cloak. "Sir?" she asked in a weary voice.
"Try using a zeta type 4 crystal to focus the projection. That will free up energy for the impact," Kunzite instructed.
Amethyst nodded and turned towards the target. In one fluid motion and without much thought, an intricately designed crystal appeared, and only moments later a highly focused energy projection blasted through the center if the target, which burst into flames. The wall behind the target had an impact crater almost a foot in diameter, impressive for one whose primary talent was not energy projections.
"There is your power," Kunzite drawled to the wide-eyed instructor.
Amethyst felt a thrill of exhilaration as she watched the energy projection demolish the target. Then she froze, realizing that she had quickly produced an expert-grade crystal in front of one of the generals. "Oh no," she whispered, and teleported away. So great was her agitation that it escaped her notice that she had teleported in front of General Kunzite, who had not known she could teleport at all.
Kunzite, however, did notice. "Speak of this to no one," he warned the instructor before walking off to call an emergency meeting with the other generals.
*****
Kunzite sat at the head of the conference table, waiting impatiently for Nephrite's appearance. He stoically avoided Zoicite's gaze, which pleaded that he be told the important information before Nephrite's arrival. Sometimes Kunzite thought there was something a little unusual about the way Zoicite acted around him. 'Maybe I can use that to my advantage someday,' he wondered as he waited.
Finally Nephrite arrived. "What took you so long?" Kunzite asked icily. "I call an emergency meeting -- note the use of the word emergency -- and you have more important things to do?"
"I apologize, sir," Nephrite said, his eyes carefully lowered below Kunzite's glare, "but I have important news to relate. There has been another summoning."
"Another summoning? Why am I just now hearing about this?" Kunzite asked angrily.
Nephrite kept his eyes carefully lowered. He knew that if he met Kunzite's gaze, his nonchalant attitude would fly out the window. "I was meditating to analyze the fighting styles of the Sailor Senshi while the information was fresh in my mind, sir," he replied. "The Sailor Senshi argue amongst themselves like children, but each has special abilities that, when combined, make them worthy opponents. The one called Mercury casts a blinding white fog as her only power, but her real strength lies in her intelligence. She is the strategist of the group. The one called Mars is a pyrokinetic, but she also wields the weapons of a priestess. The one called Moon is childish and clumsy, but her attack, which can be best described as her tiara infused with her own power and thrown as a discus, is effective, and it is she that radiates the sickening purity Jadeite spoke of. Tuxedo Kamen, the man that throws flowers, seems separated from the group somehow, but there is some connection between him and Sailor Moon, as she is the only one he really protects." Nephrite risked a glance at his supervisor. Kunzite looked interested -- a good sign.
"What was summoned this time?" Kunzite asked.
"A unicorn, sir."
"A unicorn?" Zoicite interrupted with a laugh. "Aren't they supposed to be all pure and sweet and stuff? Why would the Sailor Senshi be fighting a unicorn?"
Nephrite glared at Zoicite for interrupting him. "The Sailor Senshi were fighting the unicorn because its summoner, who was not identified, summoned the unicorn in its original form and then infused it with enough Dark Energy to weaken it and take the unicorn's horn. The summoner then created a youma that almost perfectly mimicked the unicorn without the use of any illusion spells, except for the coloration, which I believe was artistic license. This new unicorn used its horn to sicken the plants it touched and even the minds of humans it came in contact with. Mars was able to heal these people."
Kunzite was quiet for a moment, lost in thought, before he spoke. "So someone teleported to earth from the Dark Kingdom, summoned a unicorn, used Dark Energy to weaken it, created a youma clone with minimal illusionary spells, and fused this youma with the power of the horn?"
Nephrite nodded.
"Do we know anyone capable of doing all of these things?" Kunzite asked. "Could it be a group of Dark Kingdom citizens working together? But for what purpose?"
Nephrite shook his head. "I do not know anyone capable of all these tasks. And I don't think it is a group -- I would have been able to find a group of Dark Kingdom citizens by their combined energy signatures."
Kunzite paused again before asking, "Is there anything else you can tell me about this situation?"
Nephrite thought for a moment. "Well, the Sailor Senshi defeated the unicorn when Moon clipped off its horn with her tiara. She was supported by Tuxedo Kamen and seemed weakened. Then she seemed to go into a funny sort of trance as if she was controlled by the original unicorn, and she approached it, picked up the horn with her bare hands, and put it back on the unicorn's forehead. The unicorn cleaned up the area before teleporting itself back to its own dimension."
"What about the dark unicorn?"
"Well," Nephrite thought, "it disintegrated, as youma do, when struck by Sailor Moon's tiara. The youma was black, and its eyes glowed purple."
"Wait, its eyes glowed purple?" Kunzite asked.
"Um, yeah, they did. It's power had a purple signature as well," Nephrite added.
Kunzite sat back in his seat, his face showing astonishment for the faintest second before a smug smile took its place. "Our summoner is from the Dark Kingdom, has an unusually broad scope of abilities in an unusual combination, summons creatures from human mythology, and has a purple energy signature. I think I know who our summoner is."
"You do?" Nephrite asked in surprise.
"Who?" Zoicite demanded.
"If you recall, I called this meeting before I even knew about the unicorn summoning. I called this meeting because I have determined that Amethyst, the child so protected by Jadeite, has advanced gemology skills."
Zoicite was immediately distracted from wondering who the summoner was. "How advanced?" she asked, angry and suspicious that someone had trained the girl without his consent.
"Well," Kunzite said, anticipating Zoicite's outrage with not a little pleasure. "She used a zeta type 4 crystal to focus an energy projection during her first day of training."
Zoicite was shaking with anger. It had been years before he had mastered the zeta type 4 crystal, only a few of his Dark Kingdom citizens could create that type of crystal, and they were kept under lock and key. "Where did she get a zeta type 4 crystal?"
Kunzite was really enjoying this. "That's the truly interesting thing, Zoicite," he said, drawing out the conversation so he could savor every moment of it. "She created it in front of me in a matter of seconds."
Zoicite's howl of fury can be heard echoing throughout the Dark Kingdom. Elsewhere, youma looked around, confused at the sound, but they eventually realized that they were usually confused so this was nothing special, and they continued doing whatever it is youma do in the Dark Kingdom.
"So she made all of those crystals Jadeite was using," Nephrite stated after the echoes from Zoicite's scream died down.
Kunzite nodded. "But I think we have more important things to worry about where Amethyst is concerned," Kunzite continued, his mood now sober. "As far as I know, Amethyst has only two possessions. The first is the purple energy storage crystal she created before the long sleep, the one that left the purple markings on her forehead and right hand. Her other possession is a book that Jadeite gave her, a book on earth mythology. When I went to get her for her energy projection lesson, she was sound asleep, obviously exhausted, so I took a few minutes to wander around Jadeite's quarters. The book was opened to a picture of unicorn." Kunzite paused to let this information sink in before he dropped the bombshell: "I think she has been summoning the creatures that have been appearing in Tokyo."
"What?" Nephrite asked, his turn to be stunned. "That can't be possible. I mean, I know she visited alternative planes during the long sleep, during which she was awake and all, but how could she be powerful enough to summon? And that unicorn was infused with so much power! Where did she learn to control so much energy?"
"Probably the same way she learned gemology. And energy projection. And the summoning of creatures from alternative dimensions. And youma creation. And any other abilities she and Jadeite hid from us so successfully."
"And where is that?" Zoicite snapped.
Kunzite's answer was simple: "Stolen memories."
A long silence filled the room as each general wondered what other knowledge she had gleaned from the minds she had mined.
"She will summon again, and soon," Kunzite said eventually. "I will follow her, but I want the rest of you to stay here in the Dark Kingdom." He held up a hand when it looked as if the other generals would argue. "We are only beginning to see what Jadeite recognized from the beginning: this girl is a valuable asset to the Dark Kingdom. I will follow her, I will observe her, and then, if my assumptions are correct, I will ask Queen Beryl for permission to expend the energy for a thorough reconditioning. She can be cleansed of her loyalty to Jadeite as she was cleansed of her loyalty to her family and friends on earth during the Silver Millennium. I forbid either of you to touch her out of jealousy. Indeed, I also fear that this child will be more powerful than me when trained properly, but our loyalties lie with Queen Beryl before they lie with ourselves. She is an important resource, and she will be used to the fullest extent." With these final words, Kunzite teleported out of the Dark Kingdom in search of the little purple-haired, purple-eyed girl that he though held the keys to Metallia's resurrection in her capable little hands.
*****
"Stupid, stupid, stupid!" Amethyst chided herself as she teleported back to Jadeite's quarters. She had created and then used a highly advanced crystal in front of a general! "The time for revenge is over. I don't think I'll be able to destroy the Sailor Scouts, but I'll bet I can gather enough energy to break Jadeite free from Queen Beryl's crystal. Jadeite will protect me, and neither of us will ever be alone again." With these words, Amethyst grabbed the mythology book and teleported to the library on earth.
She closeted herself in one of the quiet reading rooms with the mythology book. She flipped through the pages of the text, glaring at the pictures of the dragon and the unicorn as their pages were turned. 'I don't have much time before the generals find me,' she thought. 'I don't have time to make youma, so I need to find something that can naturally drain a lot of energy very quickly from a lot of people. It also should do it quietly -- the last thing I need is to have those stupid Sailor Senshi interfere!' Amethyst paused when she came across a picture of beautiful, half-naked women that lived in trees. She read: "'While not considered evil, wood sprites are selfish creatures. If a wood sprite sees an attractive man, she will absorb his energy in an attempt to keep him with her. Wood sprites cannot exist very long apart from trees.'" Amethyst looked up from the book, a scheming glint in her purple eyes. "This might be it!" she exclaimed.
Amethyst roamed throughout the library, completely draining the life force energy from every solitary person she met. She had no time to consider respecting people that respected books. She needed energy, and she needed it fast. She left the library before the first corpse was discovered. She held her purple energy storage crystal in her right hand, and the concentrated energy made the crystal pulse with a purple glow.
Outside the library she encountered a beautiful, sunny day. There was sure to be a crowd of people at the park, which meant more potential victims but also a higher chance of attracting the Sailor Senshi's attention. The cheery atmosphere contrasted sharply with the apprehension she felt as she sat under a shade tree and began the summoning process. This summoning would take more energy than either the dragon or the unicorn, as she was summoning several wood sprites, each of which had to be infused with dark energy to magnify their selfishness so they would absorb more energy from more men more quickly. They then had to be given more energy to connect with trees inside the park. Amethyst did all of this with her eyes closed, the crystal held firmly in her hand, the book open on her lap to the picture of the sprites. To the casual observer, the child was resting her eyes, not summoning and molding a destructive force with incredible mental discipline.
When the wood nymphs were in place, Amethyst opened her eyes. The world looked the same. The wood nymphs were hidden within the trees, and the crowds of happy people walked by them unknowingly until an especially attractive man walked by. With her Dark Kingdom eyes, Amethyst could see the tendrils of energy being lifted from the man as he walked past a hidden wood sprite. The sprite wound the threads of energy into her hair to keep a part of his beauty with her. The man walked on, brushed by another tree, and then another, until he fell to the ground in a faint.
"Are you alright, sir?" a man asked, stopping to check on the stranger that had fallen unconsciously to the ground. This man, too, fed the sprites, and quickly joined the first man, face down in the dirt.
"Somebody call an ambulance!" somebody cried. A crowd of curious on- lookers soon gathered around the fallen men, and before long there was a fairly large group of men that had quite a bit less energy than they had moments before.
The sprites wound up the energy greedily, and Amethyst slipped the energy away from the sprites even as they gathered more. Additional energy she took from the anxious women that were at a loss of how to help their husbands, boyfriends, and sons. Amethyst directed all of this energy into her crystal, which fairly shone with the energy. 'I've never held this much energy before,' Amethyst thought.
"Aku ryo tai san!" a cry rang out, and the red-skirted Sailor Senshi stepped into the midst of the crowd, throwing slips of paper with "evil spirit run away" written on them in perfect kanji. Angry sprites were forced out of their trees and turned upon the intruder with showers of wooden splinters, which flew from their fingertips. Then the blue skirted Sailor Senshi arrived, and a thick mist covered the area.
Amethyst took this as a good signal to leave. She closed her fist tightly around the purple energy storage crystal, ignoring the battle that was taking place between the Sailor Senshi and the wood sprites to feel the pulsing of the energy the crystal contained. She would use this energy to free Jadeite from his crystal prison. Jadeite would know how to keep her safe from the other generals. With this intent, as the magical fog began to dissipate, she teleported out of the park and back to the Dark Kingdom.
*****
Kunzite watched as the most powerful child the Dark Kingdom had ever witnessed teleported out of the park and back into the Dark Kingdom. There was no question in his mind as to her destination. She would be visiting Jadeite, no doubt attempting to free him from Queen Beryl's crystal prison with the energy contained in that purple crystal. He had arrived at the park from the general's meeting in time to be a hidden witness as Amethyst had used human life-force energy and her mythology book to summon the wood sprites. He had seen her channel Dark Energy into the sprites, magnifying their selfish natures to turn them into efficient energy gatherers. His Dark Kingdom eyes had seen the tendrils of energy slip away from the sprites, channeled into Amethyst's purple stone. She had stolen the energy back from the wood sprites with such elegance and skill that he doubted they had ever noticed the loss.
The Dark Kingdom regularly killed Dark Kingdom citizens for disobedience or disloyalty, but the Dark Kingdom would be foolish to waste such a resource as this little girl. He decided that he would oversee Amethyst's dark energy acclimatization himself to ensure that her traitorous thinking and loyalties to Jadeite were replaced with unadulterated loyalty to Queen Beryl with minimum damage to her very useful mind.
*****
When Kunzite arrived at Jadeite's apartments to escort Amethyst to her first energy projection lesson, he found her asleep. Rather than waking her up, he wandered around Jadeite's apartments, intellectually interested in how Amethyst was faring on her own. The apartment still looked much like it had when Jadeite had been there, but with a few exceptions. The first thing Kunzite noticed was a large mythology book that was sitting on Jadeite's coffee table. It was opened to a picture of a unicorn. "I guess all little girls like unicorns," he muttered, and then wondered how he had known that earth girls like unicorns. The thought was quickly lost, Queen Beryl's mind control spell working as it should.
The second change to Jadeite's quarters was the broken state of a side table. One of the legs had been demolished by an energy projection of some sort, and the vase that had been on the table was missing. Kunzite concluded that Jadeite had broken the table himself in some fit of rage before his imprisonment, as the table had obviously been damaged by an energy projection, and Amethyst had not yet been trained in energy projection.
The girl slept on, so Kunzite took it upon himself to wake her. He called her name several times before she opened her eyes, blinking them to focus her bleary vision. "Why are you so tired? Have you been practicing your levitation or something?" he asked her.
Amethyst looked at him for a moment, not understanding the question, before remembering that she should be covering up the fact that she spent too much energy in the unicorn summoning and alteration, only to fail in her plan to destroy the Sailor Senshi. "Um, yeah, I was practicing levitation. I'm getting pretty good at it," she said in her best innocent little girl voice. 'I'm really going to have to work to hide my abilities today,' she remembered. 'I'm not supposed to be able to levitate much at all. I wonder what Kunzite would say if he knew what I could really do!' These thought brought her a moment of joy until she remembered what would really happen if the generals found out about her abilities -- Jadeite had warned her that they would kill her out of jealousy without a second thought. That sobered her up quickly.
"Well, lets get going," Kunzite said abruptly, shattering Amethyst's train of thought.
"Yes, sir," she said, getting out of bed and following him out of Jadeite's quarters.
*****
'I am no longer safe,' Amethyst thought, noting the glints of suspicion in the eyes of the Dark Kingdom citizens they passed. She struggled to keep up with General Kunzite's long, impatient stride.
Now there was only the sound of her tiny feet scurrying to keep up with the general in front of her, the thud of his heavy boots as he walked ahead of her, and the weighty silence of the Dark Kingdom citizens that stared at her with suspicion and an anger born in their fear of her.
Lost in her thoughts, Amethyst narrowly missed stumbling into General Kunzite when he suddenly stopped. "You must have something on your mind," he commented, his hands resting on her shoulders to steady her. They had walked past heavily armed guards, and the uneven black stone that covered most surfaces in the Dark Kingdom had yielded to gray and white marble as they entered a compound whose tasteful architecture and extravagant furnishing spoke of highly reverenced inhabitants.
"I have taken you to the general's own training hall," Kunzite told her when he noticed her surprise at her environment. "I noticed the looks you were getting from the other citizens. Jadeite was right in keeping you apart from the other citizens."
*****
Kunzite watched Amethyst closely as she aimed an energy projection at the target. The girl was clearly exhausted, which might explain why her aim was off, but it was obvious to Kunzite that she was trying to downplay her abilities. She did not have very good control of her energy beams, and the beams lacked power, which was what he had expected for a first lesson when energy projection was not a talent. What Kunzite noticed, however, was how finely focused and delicately created the energy was. Such focus was probably the result of a highly developed mind and experience with energy control, neither of which he expected Amethyst to have. In fact, the energy projections looked similar to those Zoicite made without the aid of a crystal.
"I've never seen anything like it, sir," the instructor said to Kunzite as another weak but beautifully crafter energy projection missed the target altogether. "Most beginning students throw all of their energy into their projections but have absolutely no focus. She has incredible focus, but no power!"
Kunzite only nodded. While she was missing the target, maybe on purpose to hide abilities, it appeared that so much of her energy was going into the intricate production of the energy projection that there was no energy left for an intense impact. 'It probably wouldn't have occurred to the child to make an unfocused energy projection to hide her skills,' Kunzite thought in amusement.
"Amethyst," Kunzite called.
The girl turned to look at him and the instructor, her white-purple hair swirling around her tiny frame like a cloak. "Sir?" she asked in a weary voice.
"Try using a zeta type 4 crystal to focus the projection. That will free up energy for the impact," Kunzite instructed.
Amethyst nodded and turned towards the target. In one fluid motion and without much thought, an intricately designed crystal appeared, and only moments later a highly focused energy projection blasted through the center if the target, which burst into flames. The wall behind the target had an impact crater almost a foot in diameter, impressive for one whose primary talent was not energy projections.
"There is your power," Kunzite drawled to the wide-eyed instructor.
Amethyst felt a thrill of exhilaration as she watched the energy projection demolish the target. Then she froze, realizing that she had quickly produced an expert-grade crystal in front of one of the generals. "Oh no," she whispered, and teleported away. So great was her agitation that it escaped her notice that she had teleported in front of General Kunzite, who had not known she could teleport at all.
Kunzite, however, did notice. "Speak of this to no one," he warned the instructor before walking off to call an emergency meeting with the other generals.
*****
Kunzite sat at the head of the conference table, waiting impatiently for Nephrite's appearance. He stoically avoided Zoicite's gaze, which pleaded that he be told the important information before Nephrite's arrival. Sometimes Kunzite thought there was something a little unusual about the way Zoicite acted around him. 'Maybe I can use that to my advantage someday,' he wondered as he waited.
Finally Nephrite arrived. "What took you so long?" Kunzite asked icily. "I call an emergency meeting -- note the use of the word emergency -- and you have more important things to do?"
"I apologize, sir," Nephrite said, his eyes carefully lowered below Kunzite's glare, "but I have important news to relate. There has been another summoning."
"Another summoning? Why am I just now hearing about this?" Kunzite asked angrily.
Nephrite kept his eyes carefully lowered. He knew that if he met Kunzite's gaze, his nonchalant attitude would fly out the window. "I was meditating to analyze the fighting styles of the Sailor Senshi while the information was fresh in my mind, sir," he replied. "The Sailor Senshi argue amongst themselves like children, but each has special abilities that, when combined, make them worthy opponents. The one called Mercury casts a blinding white fog as her only power, but her real strength lies in her intelligence. She is the strategist of the group. The one called Mars is a pyrokinetic, but she also wields the weapons of a priestess. The one called Moon is childish and clumsy, but her attack, which can be best described as her tiara infused with her own power and thrown as a discus, is effective, and it is she that radiates the sickening purity Jadeite spoke of. Tuxedo Kamen, the man that throws flowers, seems separated from the group somehow, but there is some connection between him and Sailor Moon, as she is the only one he really protects." Nephrite risked a glance at his supervisor. Kunzite looked interested -- a good sign.
"What was summoned this time?" Kunzite asked.
"A unicorn, sir."
"A unicorn?" Zoicite interrupted with a laugh. "Aren't they supposed to be all pure and sweet and stuff? Why would the Sailor Senshi be fighting a unicorn?"
Nephrite glared at Zoicite for interrupting him. "The Sailor Senshi were fighting the unicorn because its summoner, who was not identified, summoned the unicorn in its original form and then infused it with enough Dark Energy to weaken it and take the unicorn's horn. The summoner then created a youma that almost perfectly mimicked the unicorn without the use of any illusion spells, except for the coloration, which I believe was artistic license. This new unicorn used its horn to sicken the plants it touched and even the minds of humans it came in contact with. Mars was able to heal these people."
Kunzite was quiet for a moment, lost in thought, before he spoke. "So someone teleported to earth from the Dark Kingdom, summoned a unicorn, used Dark Energy to weaken it, created a youma clone with minimal illusionary spells, and fused this youma with the power of the horn?"
Nephrite nodded.
"Do we know anyone capable of doing all of these things?" Kunzite asked. "Could it be a group of Dark Kingdom citizens working together? But for what purpose?"
Nephrite shook his head. "I do not know anyone capable of all these tasks. And I don't think it is a group -- I would have been able to find a group of Dark Kingdom citizens by their combined energy signatures."
Kunzite paused again before asking, "Is there anything else you can tell me about this situation?"
Nephrite thought for a moment. "Well, the Sailor Senshi defeated the unicorn when Moon clipped off its horn with her tiara. She was supported by Tuxedo Kamen and seemed weakened. Then she seemed to go into a funny sort of trance as if she was controlled by the original unicorn, and she approached it, picked up the horn with her bare hands, and put it back on the unicorn's forehead. The unicorn cleaned up the area before teleporting itself back to its own dimension."
"What about the dark unicorn?"
"Well," Nephrite thought, "it disintegrated, as youma do, when struck by Sailor Moon's tiara. The youma was black, and its eyes glowed purple."
"Wait, its eyes glowed purple?" Kunzite asked.
"Um, yeah, they did. It's power had a purple signature as well," Nephrite added.
Kunzite sat back in his seat, his face showing astonishment for the faintest second before a smug smile took its place. "Our summoner is from the Dark Kingdom, has an unusually broad scope of abilities in an unusual combination, summons creatures from human mythology, and has a purple energy signature. I think I know who our summoner is."
"You do?" Nephrite asked in surprise.
"Who?" Zoicite demanded.
"If you recall, I called this meeting before I even knew about the unicorn summoning. I called this meeting because I have determined that Amethyst, the child so protected by Jadeite, has advanced gemology skills."
Zoicite was immediately distracted from wondering who the summoner was. "How advanced?" she asked, angry and suspicious that someone had trained the girl without his consent.
"Well," Kunzite said, anticipating Zoicite's outrage with not a little pleasure. "She used a zeta type 4 crystal to focus an energy projection during her first day of training."
Zoicite was shaking with anger. It had been years before he had mastered the zeta type 4 crystal, only a few of his Dark Kingdom citizens could create that type of crystal, and they were kept under lock and key. "Where did she get a zeta type 4 crystal?"
Kunzite was really enjoying this. "That's the truly interesting thing, Zoicite," he said, drawing out the conversation so he could savor every moment of it. "She created it in front of me in a matter of seconds."
Zoicite's howl of fury can be heard echoing throughout the Dark Kingdom. Elsewhere, youma looked around, confused at the sound, but they eventually realized that they were usually confused so this was nothing special, and they continued doing whatever it is youma do in the Dark Kingdom.
"So she made all of those crystals Jadeite was using," Nephrite stated after the echoes from Zoicite's scream died down.
Kunzite nodded. "But I think we have more important things to worry about where Amethyst is concerned," Kunzite continued, his mood now sober. "As far as I know, Amethyst has only two possessions. The first is the purple energy storage crystal she created before the long sleep, the one that left the purple markings on her forehead and right hand. Her other possession is a book that Jadeite gave her, a book on earth mythology. When I went to get her for her energy projection lesson, she was sound asleep, obviously exhausted, so I took a few minutes to wander around Jadeite's quarters. The book was opened to a picture of unicorn." Kunzite paused to let this information sink in before he dropped the bombshell: "I think she has been summoning the creatures that have been appearing in Tokyo."
"What?" Nephrite asked, his turn to be stunned. "That can't be possible. I mean, I know she visited alternative planes during the long sleep, during which she was awake and all, but how could she be powerful enough to summon? And that unicorn was infused with so much power! Where did she learn to control so much energy?"
"Probably the same way she learned gemology. And energy projection. And the summoning of creatures from alternative dimensions. And youma creation. And any other abilities she and Jadeite hid from us so successfully."
"And where is that?" Zoicite snapped.
Kunzite's answer was simple: "Stolen memories."
A long silence filled the room as each general wondered what other knowledge she had gleaned from the minds she had mined.
"She will summon again, and soon," Kunzite said eventually. "I will follow her, but I want the rest of you to stay here in the Dark Kingdom." He held up a hand when it looked as if the other generals would argue. "We are only beginning to see what Jadeite recognized from the beginning: this girl is a valuable asset to the Dark Kingdom. I will follow her, I will observe her, and then, if my assumptions are correct, I will ask Queen Beryl for permission to expend the energy for a thorough reconditioning. She can be cleansed of her loyalty to Jadeite as she was cleansed of her loyalty to her family and friends on earth during the Silver Millennium. I forbid either of you to touch her out of jealousy. Indeed, I also fear that this child will be more powerful than me when trained properly, but our loyalties lie with Queen Beryl before they lie with ourselves. She is an important resource, and she will be used to the fullest extent." With these final words, Kunzite teleported out of the Dark Kingdom in search of the little purple-haired, purple-eyed girl that he though held the keys to Metallia's resurrection in her capable little hands.
*****
"Stupid, stupid, stupid!" Amethyst chided herself as she teleported back to Jadeite's quarters. She had created and then used a highly advanced crystal in front of a general! "The time for revenge is over. I don't think I'll be able to destroy the Sailor Scouts, but I'll bet I can gather enough energy to break Jadeite free from Queen Beryl's crystal. Jadeite will protect me, and neither of us will ever be alone again." With these words, Amethyst grabbed the mythology book and teleported to the library on earth.
She closeted herself in one of the quiet reading rooms with the mythology book. She flipped through the pages of the text, glaring at the pictures of the dragon and the unicorn as their pages were turned. 'I don't have much time before the generals find me,' she thought. 'I don't have time to make youma, so I need to find something that can naturally drain a lot of energy very quickly from a lot of people. It also should do it quietly -- the last thing I need is to have those stupid Sailor Senshi interfere!' Amethyst paused when she came across a picture of beautiful, half-naked women that lived in trees. She read: "'While not considered evil, wood sprites are selfish creatures. If a wood sprite sees an attractive man, she will absorb his energy in an attempt to keep him with her. Wood sprites cannot exist very long apart from trees.'" Amethyst looked up from the book, a scheming glint in her purple eyes. "This might be it!" she exclaimed.
Amethyst roamed throughout the library, completely draining the life force energy from every solitary person she met. She had no time to consider respecting people that respected books. She needed energy, and she needed it fast. She left the library before the first corpse was discovered. She held her purple energy storage crystal in her right hand, and the concentrated energy made the crystal pulse with a purple glow.
Outside the library she encountered a beautiful, sunny day. There was sure to be a crowd of people at the park, which meant more potential victims but also a higher chance of attracting the Sailor Senshi's attention. The cheery atmosphere contrasted sharply with the apprehension she felt as she sat under a shade tree and began the summoning process. This summoning would take more energy than either the dragon or the unicorn, as she was summoning several wood sprites, each of which had to be infused with dark energy to magnify their selfishness so they would absorb more energy from more men more quickly. They then had to be given more energy to connect with trees inside the park. Amethyst did all of this with her eyes closed, the crystal held firmly in her hand, the book open on her lap to the picture of the sprites. To the casual observer, the child was resting her eyes, not summoning and molding a destructive force with incredible mental discipline.
When the wood nymphs were in place, Amethyst opened her eyes. The world looked the same. The wood nymphs were hidden within the trees, and the crowds of happy people walked by them unknowingly until an especially attractive man walked by. With her Dark Kingdom eyes, Amethyst could see the tendrils of energy being lifted from the man as he walked past a hidden wood sprite. The sprite wound the threads of energy into her hair to keep a part of his beauty with her. The man walked on, brushed by another tree, and then another, until he fell to the ground in a faint.
"Are you alright, sir?" a man asked, stopping to check on the stranger that had fallen unconsciously to the ground. This man, too, fed the sprites, and quickly joined the first man, face down in the dirt.
"Somebody call an ambulance!" somebody cried. A crowd of curious on- lookers soon gathered around the fallen men, and before long there was a fairly large group of men that had quite a bit less energy than they had moments before.
The sprites wound up the energy greedily, and Amethyst slipped the energy away from the sprites even as they gathered more. Additional energy she took from the anxious women that were at a loss of how to help their husbands, boyfriends, and sons. Amethyst directed all of this energy into her crystal, which fairly shone with the energy. 'I've never held this much energy before,' Amethyst thought.
"Aku ryo tai san!" a cry rang out, and the red-skirted Sailor Senshi stepped into the midst of the crowd, throwing slips of paper with "evil spirit run away" written on them in perfect kanji. Angry sprites were forced out of their trees and turned upon the intruder with showers of wooden splinters, which flew from their fingertips. Then the blue skirted Sailor Senshi arrived, and a thick mist covered the area.
Amethyst took this as a good signal to leave. She closed her fist tightly around the purple energy storage crystal, ignoring the battle that was taking place between the Sailor Senshi and the wood sprites to feel the pulsing of the energy the crystal contained. She would use this energy to free Jadeite from his crystal prison. Jadeite would know how to keep her safe from the other generals. With this intent, as the magical fog began to dissipate, she teleported out of the park and back to the Dark Kingdom.
*****
Kunzite watched as the most powerful child the Dark Kingdom had ever witnessed teleported out of the park and back into the Dark Kingdom. There was no question in his mind as to her destination. She would be visiting Jadeite, no doubt attempting to free him from Queen Beryl's crystal prison with the energy contained in that purple crystal. He had arrived at the park from the general's meeting in time to be a hidden witness as Amethyst had used human life-force energy and her mythology book to summon the wood sprites. He had seen her channel Dark Energy into the sprites, magnifying their selfish natures to turn them into efficient energy gatherers. His Dark Kingdom eyes had seen the tendrils of energy slip away from the sprites, channeled into Amethyst's purple stone. She had stolen the energy back from the wood sprites with such elegance and skill that he doubted they had ever noticed the loss.
The Dark Kingdom regularly killed Dark Kingdom citizens for disobedience or disloyalty, but the Dark Kingdom would be foolish to waste such a resource as this little girl. He decided that he would oversee Amethyst's dark energy acclimatization himself to ensure that her traitorous thinking and loyalties to Jadeite were replaced with unadulterated loyalty to Queen Beryl with minimum damage to her very useful mind.
