"My Mom and Dad will wonder why I don't show up," Cerecere was saying, as she led the two other girls, accompanied by Diana, through a back alley between two large canvas tents. A man looked at them questioningly in passage, and Cerecere flashed a pass at him.
"Can't be helped," Bunny sighed. "I'm sorry. I know you don't get to spend much time with them."
"It's all right… we don't really relate much anyways." Her eye's remained on the dirt at her feet as she turned a corner and ducked through a flap. Pallapalla and Bunny exchanged a glance of mutual concern for their friend, before following. The tent was shadowed, and cluttered with various costuming utensils, and even three young girls and one small cat made the area seem oppressively crowded. Pallapalla, however was oblivious, as she made a thorough inspection of the equipment, occasionally asking Cerecere about something, eyes glittering with anticipatory fervor.
"Almost scary," Diana muttered in Bunny's ear from her perch on her shoulder. Bunny hid a grin. After a few more minutes of this behavior, Pallapalla, evidently inspired, descended upon the other senshi, armed with combs, clips, make-up, and a pair of scissors, which Cerecere had to forcibly deprive her of.
"Let's not go overboard," she protested.
"A bit late for that," Bunny grumbled, from beneath a flamboyant arrangement of hair, and approximately 6 layers of make-up. "Do we have to be clowns? I feel stupid." Diana made a noise that sounded remarkably like a snicker.
"Hush. You look stunning." Pallapalla leaned towards a mirror, to add the last stroke of paint to her own face. She looked at them seriously, white face and carefully placed red and black markings combining to pull the expression off beautifully. "We'll blend in better as clowns than anything else here."
"How come you get to be a sophisticated-looking clown?" Cerecere asked suspiciously.
"Artist's license," Pallapalla responded demurely. "Ready to go?"
Cerecere frowned a moment longer at her reflection, which smiled cheerily back at her, then sighed and got to her feet. "This way. We have to take a few back routes so 'they' don't see us come out. And die laughing," she added, with another disgruntled glance at Pallapalla, who raised an elegant eyebrow at the disgruntled grinning clown.
They followed her out the back of the tent, which wasn't exactly meant to serve as an exit, but lifted well enough, then in through another, under some sort of table, and out the side again, blinking in the daylight. Bunny brushed dirt from her costume, looking around. "Well. That was fun. Did it work?" They all looked at eachother, and shrugged. "Guess we just wait and see what happens." She smiled at a little kid who approached her, and blew up a balloon from her oversized pockets for him.
"At least the disguises work," Cerecere commented, still glancing askance at Pallapalla. "Shall we head for the Big Top?" Together, they filtered into the main tent.
Bunny looked around, wide-eyed. Amid the bright lights and dazzling displays it was hard to remember that they were here for a far more serious purpose than entertainment. Her eyes flickered across the face of a red-haired girl, and with a sudden jolt, she looked back. Who-?
Bunny's thought was interrupted as the girl suddenly caught sight of the three clowns, and advanced with a sharp rebuke. "Cereta! Don't think I don't see right through you! Hold it right there!"
Bunny glanced at Cerecere and saw that her friend's face had become suddenly guarded, and hostile. "Vestava," Cerecere replied coldly. "How pleasant bumping into you."
The other girl's crimson eyes narrowed as she came even with them. "What do you think you're doing? Just because your parents are on crew doesn't mean you and your pretty rich-girl friends get special privileges, you know. Some of us actually have to work to be here."
"Like you, maybe?" Pallapalla asked sarcastically, her eyes flashing at the insult.
Vestava whirled towards the new source of confrontation. "You'd better believe it. I-"
"You work your butt off for your job, and you would certainly never presume that gave you special liberties on performance days," Cerecere cut in smoothly. "Yes, we know. But the last time I checked, it was perfectly acceptable for me to attend performances, bring friends, and dress however we please. Are you going to tell me otherwise?"
The two stood in silent face off for a moment, wills locked. Finally, Vestava smiled coldly. "Whatever you say, clown-girl." She turned to leave, calling pointedly back, "By the way, pets aren't allowed. They upset the animals, you know."
Diana, who had been peeking in an unobtrusive manner over Bunny's shoulder withdrew into the backpack, looking rather abashed. Bunny looked at Cerecere, who was still staring pensively at the spot where Vestava had disappeared into the flux of the crowd. "Who was that?"
Cerecere shook herself out of her thoughts. "Vestava Penretti. She hired on a few years back- works backstage with the big cats and such. She's supposed to be really good with animals."
"What's her problem, anyway?" Pallapalla grumbled, still looking decidedly put out.
"We just don't get along very well, that's all," Cerecere said uncomfortably, and changed the subject. "So. What do we do now?" She gestured at the vast milling crowds. "We'll never cover this mess without some sort of plan."
Bunny sighed. "I hate to say it, but I think we're going to have to split up. Each of us take a section. If nothing happens in an hour, we can meet back here and come up with something else."
They discussed it a moment longer, but they came up with no better option. Bunny left for her specified area nagged by doubts. This 'plan' already seemed to be full of holes and going down hill like a racecar. No one had mentioned it, but Vestava's quick recognition of Cerecere had thrown off their easy confidence in their disguises. Their inevitable separation didn't make them any more comfortable. "Diana," Bunny said suddenly, "Isn't their some sort of communication device we could get? Diana?" Bunny slung the backpack off her shoulder to peer into it. The cat was gone. A growing trend, Bunny noticed, with a wry grimace. "You'd think she could give me a little warning," she muttered.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Zephyr stepped from the darkness behind one of the tent's support columns. Looking around, he took in the hectic scene with cool, appraising eyes. This gathering would suit his plans nicely. Everything would go as he foresaw, and if the Sailor Senshi did choose to interfere?- Zephyr smiled, glancing down at the smooth silver bracelet that gleamed about his wrist- that would make it even better.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Diana slipped through the crowds, keeping her tail well tucked away from the stomping mass of feet as she struggled to keep the figure she was following in view. That girl… There was something about her- she had that special aura to her, that feeling. Something not totally of this world. Which could mean any number of things. Ahead of her, Vestavi turned into an area blocked off to the milling crowds, and Diana crept back into the shadows to watch her. The smell of large animals was all around, and she could hear the heavy shuffling of elephants, the restless padding of the big cats.
Crooning softly in a sort of tuneless monotone, Vestavi swept out the area, and proceeded to change the straw beddings of some of the cages. Diana relaxed her guard gradually, and finally felt confident enough to creep into the open. Vestavi turned. "Well hello, there. I remember you!" Bending down by the lavender-gray cat, she offered a hand. "Did you get lost? Silly girls, shouldn't bring a precious cat like you into this mess." Diana purred, and rubbed up against her, and Vestavi smiled fondly. "You are a charmer, aren't you? Stay with me while I finish up here, and I'll help you look for Cereta and her fellow clowns." Standing, she picked up her broom again. "That girl- she's such a pain. Cool as you please, and oh-so-superior. But come time to do work- you know, get your hands dirty- and where is she then?" Vestavi looked at Diana as if she might actually expect an answer. After a brief silence, she shook her head. "This job- well, I love what I do, and that's not much. But Cereta…" She broke off, with a growl of frustration. "At least I take what I do seriously!" she finished, and stopped talking. A little later, she brushed off her clothes, hung up the broom, and started back into the crowd, Diana in tow.
Cerecere ambled through her designated sector of the big top, still brooding over her encounter with Vestavi. She hadn't seen the other girl in almost a year, and she could still hold a grudge like no other. Not that she was without foundation for one… but that had been a long time ago. Cerecere had since given up trying to re-establish the friendship that had just been beginning…
She looked absently over, as the ringmaster entered the center area, and prepared to welcome the audience to the start of the show. Artificial fog began to rise around him, setting an appropriate, suspenseful mood. She looked again. That wasn't the ringmaster… in fact, that man, with the dark blue hair tumbling loose down his back, wasn't anyone she recognized from the crew- no one who should be out there, anyway. She ran forwards, leaping the rail that kept the public out of the first ring. The fog was billowing outwards to meet her, spreading in a fine cloud as it extended its grip on the tent. This can't be the fog machines she realized, even as she ran head-on into the outer reaches of the gas. She coughed and stumbled, as the smoke enveloped her in its hazy embrace.
Pallapalla was heading back towards the meeting place, fuming with undirected energy, when she caught sight of the lone figure leaping the boundaries and running into the ring. She was also in a perfect vantage point to see the rapidly expanding cloud of gas, which was just beginning to spread into the crowds. "Oh, shoot." She saw Bunny pushing her way towards her through the increasingly agitated crowd, and hurried to meet her.
"Something's happening!" Bunny yelled over the noise of frightened people. "We've got to find Cerecere, and stop this!"
"I saw her! She was heading into the center ring!" Pallapalla swayed slightly, and steadied herself against her friend. She blinked as the widely dispersed gas made her eyes water. They started to forge their way in that direction, which unfortunately happened to go against the flow of the crowd. However, as more and more people dropped quietly into semi-unconsciousness, or simply seated themselves dazedly on the ground, the problem of the crowds diminished. Bunny and Pallapalla, however, were both reeling.
Their progress slowed to a halt, and they stared blinking uncertainly at each other through the mist as they tried to remember what they were doing. A sudden, sharp pain in the ankle brought Bunny gasping to her senses. She glared blearily down at Diana, who withdrew her claws. "Bunny, you need to transform. Can you understand me? Transform!" Bunny drew out her wand, and satisfied, Diana applied a similar treatment to Pallapalla.
"Moon Goddess Power!"
"Pallas Goddess Power!"
Transformed, and make-up free, the two senshi struggled to take in the situation. Sailor Pallas waved the smoke away from her face, and was suddenly, intensely aware of the movement in the air. She had the eerie sensation that she could see each individual particle. Touching her brooch, she reached for a power she instinctively knew was in her. "Tempest of Hera!" she called, clapping her hands together. In front of her, the smoke was pushed abruptly aside, clearing a pathway straight ahead. She glanced at Sailor Moon. "Let's see what we can do."
Vestavi saw the stranger in the place of ringmaster. She saw the smoke spread over a first panicked and the dazed and insensible crowd. As she found herself fighting for breath, she could only think dizzily that the animals were all locked up and helpless. The animals! She pushed her was through tangles of semi-conscious people, stumbling blindly towards her goal. She had lost the cat somewhere, but she couldn't think of that now.
Staggering up to the first pen, she managed to slide back the deadbolt, and lurch through the door. She fell against the furry side of the largest male tiger, Napoleon. Burying her hands in the thick, striped pelt, she tried to steady her mind, and found, to her surprise, she could think much more clearly. She stared cross-eyed at the large, Siberian tiger, and Napoleon rumbled deep in his throat. The tiger got gracefully to his feet, shouldering her up along the way. She wobbled next to him for a moment, resting her hand on his broad back, and then felt her strength returning. Bemused, she looked from the tiger, to her hand, and then out to where she could just make out slumped figures in the smoke. Napoleon turned dark brown eyes on her, sharp with a fierce jungle intelligence, and met her gaze.
"You're not affected," she realized. "And I'm- somehow I'm not- because I'm touching you?" If Napoleon had an answer, he kept his own counsel, and only nudged her forwards, towards the cage exit. Somehow, Vestavi was not surprised to see Caesar, the male lion of the circus' pack, waiting for her just inside his own pen. She released him, and the two predators flanked her on either side. Keeping her hands on their backs, she peered into the smoke. "C'mon boys. Let's give whoever's behind this a warm, circus welcome.
They passed with silent feline grace through ranks of semi-conscious people. Something other than the gaseous fog swirled over their heads, among strange, hovering crystals, shimmering a with a multitude of dancing colors. A few of the people stared fixedly at her with dark, lifeless eyes that seemed to hold a foreign intelligence. Vestavi shivered and moved more quickly.
Sailor Moon and Sailor Pallas hurried down their cleared pathway, Pallas doing her best to hold back the encroaching smoke. Diana, apparently unaffected by the soporific gas, darted ahead, moving in and out of the mist's reaches. "Sailors! Over here!" The cat called suddenly, from a position just off to their side. "It's Cerecere!"
The two senshi hurried to their fallen comrade. Sailor Pallas cleared the air in a wide circle, as Sailor Moon knelt by Cerecere, who blinked dully at her. Supporting her friend into a sitting position, Sailor Moon murmured soothingly to her as she coughed, choked, then begin to feel the effects of the clean air. Sailor Pallas came over. "Is she all right?"
"She should be," Sailor Moon said, "Cerecere? Can you understand me?"
A bemused nod. Cerecere shook herself, took a few deep breaths. "Uh-huh."
"I need you to transform. Okay, Cerecere? Take your brooch and transform."
Cerecere fumbled for the pendant she wore on the front of her shirt. Her fingers closed on it, and she appeared suddenly stronger, as if she had been reminded of an energy source she had forgotten she had. "Ceres Goddess Power!" The third senshi got to her feet, smiling weakly at her friends. "I have a headache like you can't imagine." She steadied herself against Sailor Moon for a moment, then grinned fiercely. "Let's go kick some evil butt!"
They weren't far from the center of the circus tent, and Sailor Pallas cleared the rest of the way, with a sharp gust of air. The form of a man in a loose, black outfit came immediately into view. The familiar red star moved out of view, as the man turned. He smiled. "Ah, I wondered when you would choose to join me, my senshi friends." He turned a golden jar about in his hands. "Keiya!" he called. A glow became visible through the mist, and one of the spiritless, gorged on captured spirit-crystals, flew to swirl lazily over the man's head. "A little late, are you not?" the man continued, to the senshi.
"Jerk! How dare you take advantage of innocent festivities to steal people's souls! In the name of the Moon, we will punish you!"
Zephyr tilted his head to one side. "You can try." A silver bracelet gleamed on his wrist, and the blood-red stone set in the center started to glow. The smoke in the vicinity coalesced, rising up in tide of darkness; as it loomed over the senshi, ready to crash down upon them.
"Oh, no you don't," Pallas muttered, gritting her teeth. "Hera's Tempest!" A roaring flurry of air rose up to meet the wave of gas, hurtling against it in an invisible wall of opposition. The two forces waged an unseen battle for domination, and Pallas clenched her fists in intense concentration and strength of will.
Sailor Ceres and Sailor Moon whirled around, as from behind them a veritable army approached from the smog. The soul-robbed spectators of the circus advanced upon them, driven by a will not their own to surround and entrap the three senshi. "We can't hurt them!" Sailor Moon cried, backing up until she and Ceres were up against the wall that Pallas struggled to hold.
"I'm not so sure that's going to be an option!" Sailor Ceres called back.
Zephyr laughed. "See what the meddlers have come to. I'll have your spirit-crystals before this day is done! Then, nothing will stand against my Lord!" "I think you missed something." Zephyr spun to face the source of the challenge. Vestavi, with a large, jungle feline at either side, was advancing towards him. She bared her teeth in an angry scowl at him. Beside her, the lion and tiger did the same. It was not a comforting sight. "Napoleon, Caesar!" The girl flourished a hand in the style of the circus lion-tamers. "Let's show him what we think of creeps like him!"
As one, the great cats leaped towards their victim. Zephyr pulled his wall of smoke away from the senshi, condensing it into a roiling ball with a frantic gesture. Pallas' air blockade, abruptly freed, blasted forwards in a pummel of wind, knocking the forest predators aside, and dashing Vestavi to the ground before Sailor Pallas could slow its force. Vestavi pulled herself painfully to her feet, and Napoleon and Caesar charged again. Zephyr threw his ball of gas into their faces, but it did little more than darken their vision, and the cats were born to hunt at night. They crouched, coiling lean muscles underneath themselves like powerful springs, stalking forwards like the wild kings they were. Zephyr clutched at the golden jar. "Keiya! The girl! Take her spirit-crystal, now!"
The spirit-catcher howled towards Vestavi, swirling in a torrent about her as she gasped in alarm. She felt a horrible, wrenching pain, as if her soul fought freedom from her body, and her forehead burned as if a brand had been planted there. Crouched beside Sailor Moon, Diana jerked in recognition. The sign of Vesta!
Distracted from their prey, the lion and tiger turned towards Vestavi uncertainly. She clenched her teeth against the pain, and a single word ripped from her throat. "Go!" Reluctantly, but bristling with anger, the two big cats turned on Zephyr again. But he had bought the time he needed. A jolt of red energy had gathered in his hands, and he flung it at the cats, even as they sprung. The blast hit them in a burst of light, and they were flung to either side, where they lay, motionless.
"Demeter Tumbling Jolt!" A flash of pink and gold flickered through the air, and Zephyr threw himself to the ground, dropping the golden jar. The spirit-catcher stopped its work, allowing Vestavi to drop wearily to her knees.
"Napoleon… Caesar…" Vestavi reached helplessly towards their limp forms. She watched as the strange girls, those she had saved, those who had saved her, dealt with an enemy out of her league. Soft paws landed on her shoulder, and she turned, eyes unseeing, to the cat, which was holding a round golden brooch in its mouth. She was somehow not surprised when the cat, dropping the pendant into her open palm, spoke.
"Vestavi. You are one of the five Sailor Senshi who protect the Earth and their princess from all evil. You are the Sailor Vesta! Hold the brooch, and call out Hestia Goddess Power!"
Vestavi looked at the brooch, and then back at the cat. A flame kindled deep within her ruby eyes. "I will be able to fight?"
Diana dipped her head. "You will."
Vestavi rose, clutching the round ornament as she called, "Hestia Goddess Power!!" She could feel the power rising within her, as she tapped into something far greater than any one human. Her eyes locked on her prey, just as the lion and tiger's eyes had only moments ago.
Zephyr, unable to retrieve the jar after Sailor Pallas had gotten a hold of it, and finding himself hard put to defend himself from the three senshi, was just beginning to think that the situation was beyond repair. That was just before he felt the strange, prickling sensation at the base of his neck, and turned to find himself staring into crimson eyes ferocious with the light of battle. Energy was gathering about this figure, and he found himself frozen like the rabbit before the eyes of its hunter. He stood, staring with a sort of detached amazement at this avenging angel, and lived an hour in an instant. Then...
"Hestia Scorching Eruption!"
The ground trembled beneath him, as a wave of heat sliced through the air, something glowing ember red rushing at him; and still he stood caught in the condemnation of that predator's gaze. In the instant before the attack would have engulfed him, Zephyr felt himself wrenched away, saw a shimmering silver mist dancing before his eyes, as a peculiar, falling sensation overcame him. He disappeared.
Sailor Vesta didn't seem to notice or care that her quarry had escaped. She only moved to drop numbly beside the two great beasts who had fought when she could not. She released her senshi power, and was merely Vestavi, now twining her fingers in their ruffs. Napoleon, the tiger, moved slightly under her fingers. She could feel the thick mane of Caesar rising and falling weakly as he breathed. A knot that had been tightening around her heart since she had seen the two felines fall finally loosened. She looked up at the three senshi, now simply three quiet schoolgirls, who had gathered silently in front of her.
"Are you okay, Vesves?"
She looked up, smiling weakly. "Vesves...? You haven't called me that in years."
Cerecere shrugged, face rueful. "We can't hold grudges forever."
"No... I suppose we can't," Vestavi said slowly, a smile breaking out on her face. "I'm sorry, Cerecere." And then, as if her nature wouldn't allow her to do otherwise, added mischievously, "But you were still a careless idiot!"
Cerecere threw up her hands, half-laughing. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I bow down before the girl who has never made a mistake in her life!"
People were beginning to stir, and Vesves got to her feet. "Better believe it. I'm going to go hunt down the vet. I'll see you later?" she asked, looking suddenly uncertain, and even shy. "I'd like to meet your friends."
"We'll see you," Bunny confirmed warming to the unfamiliar girl.
Pallapalla grinned irrepressibly. "Don't think you can hide!"