"You have failed Pesci. You lost one of the crystals as well. What do you have to say?" Wise Lady spoke in a deadly calm voice.
Pesci cowered under her gaze and said, in an unsteady voice, "I will not fail you again mistress. They were just lucky and the crystal of Mercury was too weak. I promise I will defeat them next time."
"You had better not fail me again."
"Let me defeat them for you mistress," Leone remarked, bowing politely to her, "I will succeed will Pesci failed." This comment earned him a hard glare from Pesci but he just ignored her.
"Very well," Wise Lady said, "you may have a chance. Just remember, I will not tolerate failure. Also, take our newest member with you. I wish to test him out."
Leone snarled quietly but said, "As you wish mistress."
"Well, what do you guys think?" Serena asked.
The inner scouts and Darien had just informed the outer scouts of what had transpired the day before. They were quiet, thinking over this new predicament, until Trista said, "I believe they have come from the future."
The others looked at her in surprise and Amara asked, "What makes you say that?"
"I felt a minor disturbance recently in the timeline but I couldn't tell exactly what it was. I am still not sure what is happening. Somehow I am being blocked from knowing certain things about the future."
"But I thought you always knew about the future," Mina said.
"Not always, but I do know a great portion of it up until a certain point. Past that point, someone is blocking me."
Michelle spoke up then, "if this new enemy comes from the future then we must be on our guard."
"Yeah," Raye said, "we also need to find out why their here."
"Yes," Ami said, "also what about that crystal?"
"We have a lot of unanswered questions," Darien spoke up, "what we don't have is answers and they won't come until the next attack."
"That thing was pretty strong," Serena remarked, "the next one will probably be even stronger."
"We'll just have to stay on guard and if anything happens, don't try to take on the enemy alone. We have to work together," Trista said. The others nodded and agreed wholeheartedly.
"All right, now that that's done, who wants to go to the arcade," Serena said, causing several of the girls and Darien to sweatdrop.
Darien strolled through the doors of the arcade, Serena on his arm, and the other scouts following behind. She had convinced the girls to accompany her as they didn't have much else to do at the moment.
As they entered, Serena spotted a familiar person seated at the counter and called out to her, "hey Rena."
The other scouts looked over at the girl Serena had called to and saw her smile and wave. The inner scouts all greeted Rena warmly and Serena introduced her to the outer scouts.
"Guys, this is Rena. Rena, this is Amara, Michelle, Hotaru, and Trista."
"It's a pleasure to meet you," Rena said. She appeared a little nervous, hoping beyond hope that Trista wouldn't recognize her.
It seemed that she didn't for she just greeted her along with the other two, though Amara looked at her a little oddly before saying, "do I know you."
Rena looked a little surprised and succeeded in steadying her voice before saying, "I doubt it. I just moved here."
"Darien said the same thing," Serena remarked, "You must just have a familiar face or something," she said to Rena.
"Yeah, sorry kid," Amara said, still looking at her a little oddly.
The entire group soon took a seat in a booth and a waiter came by to take their order.
"The crystals are both in the area of the town. The area is heavily populated. According to the radar, they just entered a building." Mito relayed this information to Leone.
"Fine, I will be able to go after them now and they will be too worried about the people to concentrate."
Outside the arcade, people began screaming and running down the street. The scouts ran outside to see what was going on while Rena stayed behind, knowing that they wouldn't transform with her there. Instead, she made her way to a back room without being seen.
The inner and outer scouts stood on the sidewalk looking around for the disturbance. They didn't see anything until they looked up and saw a bird swooping down out of the sky at unsuspecting people. It appeared to be on fire and everyone it touched with its wings was burned.
The scouts entered the alleyway and transformed. Upon reentering the scene, Sailor Moon said, "hurting innocent people will not be tolerated. In the name of the moon, I will punish you." She went through all the poses and the firebird swooped down at her.
Sailor Moon screamed in fright and dodged the bird which landed before the scouts. It had legs like a human but with talons on its feet. Its wings were made of fire and its head was that of a falcon with a sharp beak.
The firebird flapped its wings towards the scouts and a beam of fire shot out at them. They dodged it, singeing their skirts slightly, and prepared to attack it.
"Neptune Deep Submerge!"
"Mercury Aqua Rapsody!"
The two water attacks barely hit the firebird, but they were enough to cause it to screech in pain from its fire being almost put out.
Sailor Moon released her attack, "Moon Gorgeous Meditation!" and the creature turned to dust, a red crystal nestled in the dust.
"Hey," Sailor Mars said, "I feel energy from that crystal."
"Is it evil?" Tuxedo Mask asked.
"No, it feels almost familiar," she said, but just as she was about to go to the crystal, a fire engulfed the dust and the firebird reformed itself.
A voice said to them from somewhere above, "Like the phoenix, my firebird is reborn from its ashes."
The scouts looked up to see a man in gold and orange. His hair flamed out like the mane of a lion. He smirked down at the scouts and said, "firebird, destroy them all."
The firebird suddenly released its attack as Mars called out to the man, "who are you and what do you want?"
"I do not answer to you," he said haughtily, "only my mistress commands me."
"Who is your mistress?" Venus asked.
"You will never live to find out."
Just then, the firebird attacked again, but there appeared to be too many scouts for it to handle. Just as Sailor Pluto was about to release her attack, music wafted to the scouts ears from somewhere. It sounded like a violin and just as Sailor Moon was about to finish off the firebird again, a wave of sound knocked the scouts off of their feet.
From around the corner of a building, a young man stepped from the shadows. He wore a suit of armor very similar to the make of that which Prince Endymion wore, save that instead of shades of blue the materials and metal were solid black. The only part of his armor that did not share the onyx shade was the decorative trimming, which instead gleamed a cold, unforgiving shade of silver. His long shanks of platinum white hair were somewhat held at bay by a black iron diadem that encircled his brow, twisted and very ominous in appearance. At the center of his forehead it cut off, revealing the wicked-looking black upside down crescent moon marking emblazoned into his very flesh . . . revealing to all exactly whom this stranger owed his allegiance.
"That's impossible," Mars whispered upon seeing the mark on his forehead.
"The Dark Moon Kingdom was defeated," Moon said.
"I want the Imperial Moon Crystal and the Golden Crystal," he said, stepping forward.
"You'll never get them," Tuxedo Mask said. He threw a barrage of roses at the young man who easily dodged them.
The firebird used his distraction to charge his attack but before he could release it, another voice was heard, "Earth Fatal Shockwave!" An attack hit the creature, knocking it to the ground, writhing in pain. It screeched its protest and attempted to rise but another attack knocked it back down.
Sailor Moon used her attack, "Moon Gorgeous Meditation!" and turned the creature back to dust once again, a red crystal sitting in the ashes.
The other scouts and Tuxedo Mask looked around for the source of the attack and found a shadow moving quickly in their direction. When the shadow stopped, it was stooped before the ashes and dug out the crystal with its fingers. She then turned to face the scouts.
As the person stood, the scouts could see that it appeared to be a fellow sailor scout. Her Sailor uniform was standard issue; skin-tight white leather top with a crimped skirt, elbow length gloves and knee-high boots. Her colors, however, were rather unique. The skirt was all white save for three pleats, one with a red stripe, one with a light blue stripe, and another that was brown. Her bows were both a powdery pink, matching her laced up boots, the tips of the bow in the back falling down to the backs of her knees. The centerpiece on her chest consisted of a tear-drop shaped jewel which swirled chaotically in a maddening array of colors. As the girl touched the red crystal on the ground the tear-drop burst a bright angry red for an instant before beginning to swirl once more. The crystal then disappeared from her grasp.
There were five rings on the cuffs of each of her gloves, all different. On the left, from top to bottom were pink, red, light blue, light green and orange. On the right, from top to bottom were brown, yellow, dark blue, purple and black. The mystery scout's tiara was fashioned like the Sailor Moons, solid gold with a crescent moon as its centerpiece. And finally, her inky black hair was caught up into a single bun at the crown of her head, held in place by a large red jewel, with the remainder of the hair cascading down her back.
"Wow, it's another Sailor Scout," Sailor Moon remarked in surprise. The other scouts were shocked at the new turn of events.
"Can we trust her though?" Michelle asked the others.
The new scout turned to the man in the black armor and seemed somewhat surprised by his presence. Before any of the scouts could say anything, the young man spoke, "How did you get here? No matter. Give me the crystals now and I might let you live."
Rena looked sadly at Alex, the person she knew she loved, and said, "I can't do that."
"Then you will perish with the rest of them," he said, preparing to blast them all. Just then, he heard a voice calling him back and he lowered his arms saying, "Next time, you won't be so lucky." With that, he disappeared in a swirl of dark light, followed by Leone, who disappeared in a swirl of fire.
Sailor Moon stepped forward, towards the new girl, and asked, "Who are you? Are you here to help us?"
Rena turned and smiled at Moon before saying, "I am Sailor Celestial. I am here to help and that is all you need to know." She hated to keep them in the dark but she couldn't risk them knowing too much about the future. She turned and began to walk away when she heard Moon talk again.
"Was that man really from the Dark Moon Kingdom? Do you know who our enemy is?"
Rena turned around again to regard Sailor Moon and said, "Just know that your enemy is my enemy and that the princess and the prince must be guarded at all times." With that, she jumped up and disappeared onto the rooftops.
Sailor Moon turned to the group just when Sailor Uranus said, "if she is to trust, then we have to guard the prince and princess more carefully. These new bad guys are after the crystals that you two hold."
"Well, let's talk about this someplace else," Darien suggested, looking around at the gathering crowd as they still stood in the middle of the street.
"Right, let's go," Uranus said, leading the way from the street and into an alley where they could detransform.
They made their way back to the arcade and to the booth they had previously occupied.
"Hey, where did your friend go?" Michelle asked Serena.
Serena looked around the place and, not seeing Rena, turned back and shrugged her shoulders saying, "she must have gotten scared and gone home or something."
"All right, we're going to have to stay around you two twenty-four seven if the new evil is really after the crystals." Raye said, looking between the two.
"Oh no," Darien objected, "I have to be at the hospital most days and I can't have someone following me around all day."
"Then take this," Ami said, handing over what looked like a watch to Darien.
Darien took the device and looked it over before asking, "What is it?"
"It's a communicator connected to ours so that you can contact us in the event something happens."
"Thanks," he said, putting his new communicator around his wrist. "Thanks for making it black," he said, eyeing the other scouts communicators, which were in varying colors of the rainbow.
"Now what about the princess?" Rei asked, eyeing Serena who just glared back.
"I can take care of myself," she insisted.
"Well, she can sleep over at our houses a lot," Mina said.
"I can tell mom that I'm studying a lot," Serena tried to come up with a plausible reason, "but I don't know if she'll believe it."
"We'll think of something."
Sailor Celestial stood on a rooftop of a building some distance away, looking out over the city. "This is getting harder," she said to herself. "Now that we've met, I'll have to be careful about what I say around the scouts."
Rena smiled to herself, "I hope they stay safe, for the future, and for my existence." She then frowned, tears threatening to spill, "Alex . . ."
Chapter 7 >> Return to Fanfics Return to Main