CHAPTER FOUR

Endyimon and Malachite quietly unlocked the door to the princess' cell and stepped inside. They found the two women inside, the maid still asleep, and the princess lounging elegantly against one wall. Her pose was relaxed, but her eyes glinted dangerously. "Can I help you, gentlemen?" she asked sweetly.

Endyimon ignored her, eyes drawn instead to the sleeping blonde on the cot. She was beautiful, her child-like innocence spread across delicate features. In his opinion, this girl should have been the moon princess, not the complicated warrior watching him so closely. A strangely wistful feeling sprang into his heart. If only...

He glanced back to the real princess and sighed. "Princess," he said formally, "I wish to discuss certain matters of state with you. If you'd be so kind as to accompany me to the conference room?"

The girl watched him, and something flickered in her blue eyes. She glanced toward her still sleeping maid, and he saw the same emotions play across her face. What was he seeing? Fear for her maid's well being? Speculation? And…envy? Suddenly, she smiled, and her smile was like a ray of sunshine in the dim room. Startled, Endyimon felt a quick rush of awe, immediately suppressed, from Malachite. *Does Malachite actually like this girl?!*

The girl pushed away from the wall, her bright smile still upon her face. "Well," she said, golden laughter thick in her voice, "You're no two-headed street sweeper, but you'll do."

She laughed softly, clapping him lightly on the shoulder as she passed him on the way to the door. He started to follow, but she shook her head slightly, still laughing as she pulled the unlocked door open. "If it's all the same to you, I would rather not repeat my 'Touch her and I'll kill you' speech. Once was enough. Besides," she added, grinning. "We both know you'd rather stay with my maid than go with me. I'm sure Mister Brick-Wall here can help me hammer out the contract." She exited quickly, leaving a stunned prince in her wake. He sat on the empty cot, confused, to wait for the maid to wake up.

****************************************************************************************************************************************************************************


Malachite escorted the princess to one of the upper levels of the building. This room was only slightly larger and better furnished than her cell, having a table and several chairs in the center. The girl led the way to the table, acting almost as though he were a guest in her own house, not her kidnapper.

"Now," she said when he seated himself in one of the chairs. "Let's get started. You want the princess of the moon to marry the prince of the earth, correct?" He nodded, puzzled by her abrupt change of manner. "Don't look so startled, general. I've simply decided that an alliance might...fortuitous for both sides, after all."

He nodded again, but he was still puzzled and a little suspicious of her motives. Surely she didn't want to marry Endyimon? A tiny part of himself admitted that he was insanely jealous of Endyimon. Still, what were her motives?

*When we first met, he thought, she was all royal arrogance and pride. Just minutes later, she'd become steel and lightening. She was quite willing to kill the prince to protect that little maid of hers, and I doubt that she'd think twice about killing me. Still, it's odd that she threw herself between the attacker and a mere servant.*  He sighed.  *Even now, she laughs and smiles as though she were at a grand party. Just how many personalities does this girl have? Better yet, which is the real one?*

Malachite's musings were interrupted as the door opened and a soldier entered. "Lord Malachite!" he gasped, out of breath from running. "The traitor that attacked the princess is dead!"

"What happened? How did he die, and why wasn't someone watching him?" A strange sense of foreboding crept over him. Something was not right. He saw the princess' eyes narrow slightly, as though she already knew or suspected what had happened to her attacker.

"All I know is that he was found in his cell, throat cut, but he didn't have a weapon with which to do it."

Malachite nodded and dismissed the soldier. He glanced at the girl beside him and was not surprised to find her watching him again. "It would seem," she said thoughtfully, "that you have another traitor in your ranks."

****************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

Lita was bored. Bad enough that the princess and Mina were locked in a separate cage, but now the other three senshi had been waiting for several hours without anything to do. Since their powers had already been exposed, Lita didn't feel guilty for using hers for her own amusement. She created a ball of compacted lightening and started bouncing it along the wall like a child's rubber plaything. She didn't notice that Raye's anger rose with each crackle of the ball as it made contact…or maybe she just didn't care.

Finally, Raye's Martian temper exploded. "Lita!" she shouted, and one of the cots simultaneously burst into flames. Amy immediately moved to freeze the flames, forming a sort of living sculpture.

Raye apparently didn't see the need for calming herself down. As soon as Amy finished putting out the flames on one bed, a second also caught on fire. "Stop it, Raye!" yelled Amy. Amy never yelled.

"I'm sorry, Amy," Raye quickly apologized, not sounding in the least bit sorry.  "I'm just so tense. We're stuck in here, and we can't go help them. It's frustrating."

Lita grimaced in sympathy…and threw her ball at the wall again. "Tell me about it," she said. "You should have let me kill them."

Amy grunted in frustration. "We know, Lita. If it makes you feel any better, even I regret the fact that we let them live. I'm bored, too, you know. I can't access my computer in this form, and I didn't think to bring a book."

Both Raye and Lita glared at her in annoyance.

The door opened, then, and the three generals entered for another round of questioning. Unfortunately, Raye lost control of her anger as soon as she saw them. General Jedeite was the unlucky soul who caught on fire first. He yelped and threw himself to the floor in an attempt to put the flames out. Zoicite looked pleadingly at Amy, hoping she'd put the flames out for him, but she only glared at him and remained where she was.

"Let me help with that," sneered a greasy voice from the doorway. A man stepped into the room, pulling a jug of water out of nowhere. He poured the water on Jedeite's uniform, and the flames slowly died.

Jedeite jumped quickly to his feet, and the man pushed himself the rest of the way into the room. He shut and locked the door behind him, and then turned to the other people in the room. Jedeite watched him with a mixture of suspicion and wary gratitude. "I'm sorry, sir, but can we help you? You seem to be lost." Already his hand was moving slowly to the blade at his waist.

The man gave a shallow, greasy laugh, and said, "You've already helped me. I didn't think that I'd be able to get six of my targets in one room at once, you see."  He leered at them.  "Now, help me a little more and die quietly, please. I wouldn't want the rest of my victims warned, now, do I?"

All three generals tried to draw their swords, but the assassin sent a bolt of black energy at them. The bolt hit them with enough force that all three men were thrown against the far wall. They remained, stunned and immobile, while the assassin turned to the three senshi. "Beryl warned me about your powers, so don't try to move. I'll finish them off if you do," he added with a jerk of his head towards the fallen humans.

Lita hefted her lightening ball, which steadily grew in size until it was roughly the size of an Earth melon. "You assume that we care whether or not you kill them." She threw the ball at the man, and it erupted against his chest. He staggered back a few steps, but didn't fall.

Raye, too, developed a fireball. "You see, we don't like them much more than we like you." She threw the fireball with deadly accuracy, hitting the hems of the man's pants. The man pulled another jug from thin air and poured it over his enflamed feet.

Amy gestured, and the cloud of steam condensed around the man's feet. It latched onto his legs, freezing his entire lower body to the floor. The man tugged hopelessly on his legs for a moment, then gave up. He sent a bolt of negative energy at the ice, and it shattered abruptly.

"The really nasty thing about using too much negative energy, though," murmured Amy as the man sent another bolt of black lightening at the girls, "is that the more you use it, the more you become addicted to it." She dodged the lightening, and tossed another stream of ice at the man. It struck his left arm, encasing him in ice up to the shoulder.

Lita picked up where Amy had left off. "And as you become addicted to it, you can't stop using it." She lobbed another bolt of lightening at the assassin, who was still trying to shake off the ice on his arm. He howled in pain and sent yet another stream of black energy at them.

Raye decided to help him out by flinging a wave of fire at his arm, which melted the ice and set his arm on fire. He screamed and started sending negative energy randomly throughout the room. The senshi were able to dodge each of the bolts, and by pure luck the generals didn't get hit. Raye sent another fireball at his head, purposely missing all but a few hairs at the very top. The fireball didn't hurt him, but it infuriated the greasy assassin past the point of all sanity. He gathered up all of the black energy infused in his body, determined to obliterate the senshi even if he had to eliminate himself in the process.

The energy proved to be too great for him, and instead of hurtling toward the three women, it turned on his own body. The energy flickered around his form, cutting into skin and clothing alike. It snagged around his eyes, mouth, and nostrils, creating a horrifying picture of death. Eventually, his body couldn't take any more, and his heart stopped. He collapsed where he stood, his limbs bent at impossible angles and his mouth open in a silenced scream.

"And when you can't stop using it, it drives you insane and eventually consumes you." Raye watched as the last of the energy faded from the man's body.

Unconcerned, the three senshi ignored the body long enough to pull the generals to their feet. They stood, the awe that had become almost a permanent expression on their faces. "What was that?" gasped Jedeite to Raye.

"That," she said angrily, "was an assassin of the dark moon. Goddess," she muttered. "How did they find us so quickly?" She glanced down at Jedeite's singed uniform. "Sorry about that," she said without any real apology in her voice. He shrugged, letting the matter drop.

Lita walked over to the body and kicked it as hard as she could. The man's eye sockets were empty, having been burned away by the sheer intensity of the energy in his body. "This one was probably already in the camp, and he just jumped at an opportunity to get in Beryl's good graces." She turned the body over and peered closely at the man's neck. "Look, he doesn't even have the mark of the dark moon's assassin's guild. He's an amateur," she finished, disgusted.

"That was an amateur?" exclaimed Zoicite. "What was all that black stuff that he was using?"

Amy shrugged, saying simply, "That was negative energy. Most of the agents of the dark moon have it, and it usually drives them totally insane within a week. That's what makes the denizens of the dark moon so dangerous. They think nothing of killing thousands of people, including themselves, just to get at one target."

Lita paced the floor, arms crossed and a thoughtful expression on her face. "The real question is whether or not he alerted the real assassins in the camp."

Nephlite gulped. "Are you saying that there are more like him?"

Lita laughed curtly. "Of course not. The other assassins are much more powerful."

Raye, too, pondered the situation. "Since he wasn't a member of the guild, he wasn't obligated to alert the other assassins in the camp. Greed probably compelled him to silence. Still, there isn't much of a chance that the other assassins haven't sensed all of the negative energy being bandied about."

Amy nodded. "And that means that we have only a few minutes before they start pouring in. We can't protect them," she said with a nod in the general's direction, "and stay in our current forms. We'll have to become senshi."

"You don't have to protect us," muttered General Zoicite. "You'll find that we have our own defenses." He held up a hand, and a gleaming ball of white energy appeared.

The eyes of all three girls widened in surprise. "Can you all do that?" asked Lita curiously. All three generals nodded. "Good," Lita nodded in satisfaction. "Maybe you'll be of some use after all. I'm almost glad that I didn't kill you, then."

Raye gestured impatiently. "Enough chit-chat. Let's show them what a senshi can really do! Mars Planet Power!" she called in a voice ringing with magic. A stick with a little ball on the top appeared suddenly in her hands, and the flames that erupted from it encased Raye's body with blinding heat.

Lita and Amy didn't stop to watch Raye's light show. They each began their own transformations. "Mercury Planet Power!" Amy's words and matching stick sent sheets of liquid ice around her slight form. She bent and twisted in a series of impossible convolutions so the ice would reach every inch of her body.

Lita's "Jupiter Planet Power!" brought a dozen bolts of lightening from her stick, and the lightening bolts quickly formed a pattern around her tall body.

The light from each girl blinded the generals, and when they were finally able to look back, they found that each girl wore a short-skirted uniform of various colors, complete with large bows on both the chest and the back. Their hair had also grown out, except in Amy's case, and all were extremely beautiful. Tiaras graced the foreheads of each girl, and the sheer power coming off of them in waves was astounding.

"There's probably going to be a lot of soldiers in the hallways," said Amy. "Many of them are going to be agents or assassins, but we won't be able to tell."

Raye nodded. "Okay, we'll just have to try not to kill them, then. Use blows designed to stun or knock them unconscious. Ready?" she asked the generals, who nodded. "Let's go, then."

"I don't have much practice with stunning." Lita led the way into the corridor. "Still, this should be fun."

The generals eyed each other as they followed the girls into the hallway. "Fun? What have we gotten ourselves into?" wailed Jedeite.

Nephlite eyed Lita with amusement. "The adventure of our lives, Jed, that's what we've gotten ourselves into."