The next day, Ryuu and her mother decided to go to the beach. When they got there, there were already quite a few people there. Ryuu, wearing her swimsuit underneath regular clothes, quickly set up the beach umbrella her mother had rented and set up her beach chair underneath it. "Ryuu, aren't you going to swim?" Ryuu's mother asked. Ryuu shook her head. "I don't feel like swimming." Ryuu said. "All right, then." Her mother said, leaning back in another beach chair. Suddenly, there was a commotion towards the ocean. Ryuu caught the word "shark" several times. Immediately, she was out of her chair and racing down the beach towards the water. When she got closer to the ocean, she saw what was going on. There was a red patch on the water, and a young man was in the middle of it. Ryuu wasn't sure exactly what was happening. Then the fin of a shark cut the water. Ryuu wasn't exactly sure why, but it appeared to be hesitating to do anything further. The patch of red in the water started getting wider, and it was obvious that the man was in serious trouble. Ryuu dodged around the onlookers, and plunged into the ocean. She started swimming towards the young man. Your interference is not necessary, Warrior of Extinction. This is my territory, and you are not welcome here. A female voice said, seeming to emanate from the water itself. Ryuu stopped swimming and looked around. To her the voice had seemed loud, but no one else seemed to her it. Then she noticed a girl about her own age about to dive into the water. You may not enter my ocean! the voice snarled. The girl froze immediately, and backed away from the water. Suddenly, a figure appeared next to the man who was attacked by the shark. She was a Sailor Soldier, dressed in a different manner than the few Ryuu had seen before. Her outfit was much more streamlined. Her hair was long, with a ponytail that fanned out at the end like the flukes of a whale. She had a long blade folded back along the outside of both her arms. She looked at the man for a moment, then turned towards the shark. "Foolish fish." She said to it, smiling slyly. "Don't play with them. If you're going to kill them, do it quickly." The woman waved her hand dismissively. The shark disappeared. The woman, still hovering above the water somehow, floated over to Ryuu. She looked down her nose at her. "As for you, Warrior of Extinction." she said. The blades on her arms swung down into attack position. She pointed her left hand at Ryuu. The blade extended a few feet beyond her hand, coming within an inch or two of Ryuu's face. "Do not meddle with what you do not understand." Ryuu grasped her henshin pendant and dived underwater. "Dinosaur Prehistoric Power, Make Up!" she said underwater, becoming Sailor Dinosaur. She surfaced and pointed her staff at the woman, but the she just started laughing in a very annoying way. "You're like a fish out of water here, should I say a monkey in water given the setting!" The woman said, laughing at her own joke. "You're way ahead of yourself if you think you can fight on my level. Only one person managed to out-fight me in the water, and you aren't him!" Sailor Dinosaur covered her ears to try and drown out the sound of the woman's laughter. "Didn't anyone ever tell you that you have a really annoying laugh?" Sailor Dinosaur said. The woman stopped laughing and glared at her. "No one who tried to tell me that lived to see another day." She said, her voice suddenly cold and serious. She lifted her left arm high, preparing to bring down the attached blade on Sailor Dinosaur's head. She closed her eyes and waited. Something she had seen on TV flashed in her head. She had watched a man cut a watermelon with a sword. She imagined her head in the watermelon's place. Just do it quickly. Sailor Dinosaur thought. Suddenly, the woman hissed in pain, and she opened her eyes. A trickle of blood was running down the woman's arm, and it came from a black feather that had embedded itself in her wrist. The woman pulled out the feather, licked the blood off of her arm and the feather, and threw the feather into the water. Then she started looking around, trying to find out who had thrown it. Then both Sailor Dinosaur and the other Sailor Soldier heard the hoot of an owl. Both looked behind them, towards the shore. Standing on a rubber raft was the winged man whom Dinosaur had seen before. "The ocean is a place for relaxation, not for bloodshed. How dare you spoil someone's vacation with the teeth of a shark? On the behalf of all vacationers, Owl Kamen will make you pay!" he said, ending his speech by pointing his spear at the woman. She clenched her fists and flew along the water at him. He jumped into the air just as she reached the raft and effortlessly sliced it in two. She turned to where he was in the air. "Harpoon Missile!" she shouted. The blades on her arms disappeared, replaced by barbed harpoons. These flew from her wrists towards the airborne Owl Kamen, who barely managed to dodge them. The harpoons flew into each other, exploding. The resulting shock wave hammered Sailor Dinosaur in the water and sent Owl Kamen into the sea to join her. The woman smiled as the blades on her arms reappeared and folded down once again. She skimmed along the water towards Sailor Dinosaur and Tuxedo Kamen, smiling wickedly. She raised her right blade high into the air, and brought it sweeping down for the kill. That's enough! The woman stopped immediately. The blades on her arms folded back up into their standby position. A column of water rose into the air, surrounding her. The woman was gone. Sailor Dinosaur prepared to transform back, until she remembered that the winged man was in the water too. She looked around, but saw no trace of him. She dove under the water again, and transformed. Immediately after surfacing, she swam back to the beach. The man that the shark attacked had been rescued by some other brave souls while Ryuu was busy. He was on his way to the hospital already. As soon as she appeared on the beach, she was embraced by her mother. "Ryuu, I'm so glad you're all right! The other people said you went into the water and then disappeared. I was afraid that you had drowned!" she said, trying to hold back tears. "Mom, it's okay. I'm fine." Ryuu said, extricating herself from her mother's arms. She ran back up the beach toward the umbrella. She sat back in her chair, and only then did she realize how much her encounter with that woman had exhausted her. She drifted off to sleep with a book across her face in the shade of the umbrella. Nearby, Sauro and Ami were watching. "Why did you stop her?" Ami asked. "Sailor Whale was overreacting, as always. She's too kill-happy, and she really does have an annoying laugh, actually. If Sailor Dinosaur is one of the Eight Points, she must be training still. She would be no match for Whale, even in a land battle. I wish She hadn't jammed my animal telepathy, though. That makes it that much harder to find who we're looking for. Still, why did Whale not want that other girl in the water?" Sauro said. "I don't understand how you can be so calm when the world's future is at stake." Ami said. "What was it She said to us? 'Mankind cannot comprehend a world without itself'. That was it." "What?" "." "Sauro, what do you know that you're not telling me?" "You'll find out eventually." "If it's important, I think I should know!" "." Sauro started to walk away, and Ami followed. "I don't understand you sometimes." "Let them all awaken. Then we'll find the others and stop Her. But we have to wait for that." "Why did you protect me from Her, anyway?" "Because I love you. That's why." Sauro said. Ami blushed. "You know, that's only the third time you've ever said you loved me." Ami said. Her face turned bright red, but she was still smiling. THE NEXT DAY: Ryuu ran into a tree on her way to her favorite mall. When she got there, she browsed the toy store for a while before buying a few small keychains of her favorite anime characters. She placed them in her pocket, intending to place them on her backpack or something later. She was hailed by a voice outside the toy store. "Aren't you a little old for a toy store?" Ryuu turned to see a girl with blue and green hair standing behind her. Actually, her hair started off blue at its roots, gradually becoming green further down. "What is it to you?" Ryuu retorted, rather lamely. "Never mind. What school do you go to?" she said. "Jyuban High School." Ryuu said. "Then you've seen the strange things that have happened there recently, right?" "Yeah." "Do you think that this was like the Battle in the Sky that occurred a few years ago?" "I don't know. It's so confusing. I mean, I remember the Battle in the Sky, when those two winged creatures fought over the city, but this was different." Suddenly, the girl snapped her fingers. "I completely forgot. I haven't even introduced myself. My name is Suiei Irika. I'm on the swimming team at school." Ryuu smiled nervously. "I've heard about you. Everyone has." She neglected to add that almost everyone had said that she was a freak who talked to the fish in the aquarium. The only one who had ever taken her seriously was Michiru Kaiou, captain of the girls' swim team the year before. "My name is Furui Ryuu." Irika thought for a moment, then turned and started walking away. "I forgot, I have somewhere I have to be very soon. See you after vacation, Furui." Irika said as she disappeared from view. "She was certainly a strange girl." Psitaccus said in a serious voice. "When did you get there?" Ryuu said, confused. "She goes to your school, Ryuu?" "Yeah, but everyone says she's a freak." "How so?" "Everyone says she talks to the sea creatures at the aquarium. I don't know if it's true or not." "Ryuu, follow Irika. I'll get Washi and bring her there as well." "Do you know where she's going?" "I have a feeling I do." AT THE BEACH AGAIN: Irika walked down the beach. She sat down on the sand and watched the waves break against the shore. From a distance, Sailor Dinosaur and Sailor Argentavis were watching. "So she did come here. This is where that bird-" "His name is Psttacus." "Where Psittacus thought she'd go. He said she was at the beach yesterday, when that woman attacked you." Irika took off her shoes and the rest of her clothes, and was wearing only a bathing suit. She walked down into the water, and swam away from the shore. She started treading water. Suddenly, the water erupted around her! Irika screamed and kicked away from the disturbance, and a pair of jaws closed where she had just been. A monster, looking like a cross between a shark and an lizard, lifted itself above the waves. Sailor Dinosaur tore down the beach as fast as she could, knowing that she couldn't reach Irika in time. Sailor Argentavis flew towards the monster, though even she wasn't fast enough. The monster howled and lunged at Irika again. This time it closed its jaws on Irika's right hand. She screamed, and the water around her erupted with blue light. The monster lost its hold on Irika's arm and was hurled away. Both Dinosaur and Argentavis stopped dead. Irika was floating above the water, surrounded by a blue aura. "You dare attack me in the sea?!" she hissed. She pointed a finger at the monster, and suddenly fins appeared from all directions. The dolphins congregated around her, and then they charged. They hit the monster countless times, from all directions. Before long, it sunk to the seafloor dead. Psittacus landed on Sailor Dinosaur's shoulder. "Just as I thought! She's Queen of the Waves, Sailor Orca!" Psittacus said. "Do you have a transformation item for her, too?" Sailor Argentavis wondered. Psittacus put a wing behind his head. "Well, no. I only had Ryuu's item. The whereabouts of the transformation items for the others are unknown." Psittacus said. "So this is meaningless." "Sort of." Psitaccus admitted. Irika smiled. "You were no match for me if these dolphins could destroy you." She said, laughing. Then one of the dolphins came back to her, carrying something in its mouth. Irika took it. It was a small rod with the image of a jumping killer whale on the top. Psittacus' eyes glowed. Irika! Say "Orca Cetacean Power, Make Up!" he said. Irika looked around, unsure of the source of the voice. Just do it! Irika shrugged. "Orca Cetacean Power, Make Up!" she shouted, as water rose to obscure her form. She was a Sailor Soldier when it receded, wielding a trident in her left hand. She, like the woman from the day before, seemed to be able to hover just above the water. She reached down and patted the dolphins that surrounded her. Suddenly, they disappeared. An instant later, a pair of familiar-looking missiles streaked towards her. Instinctively, Sailor Orca deflected them with her trident. They hit the ocean's surface and exploded. "Did I just do that?" a very startled Sailor Orca said. Suddenly, something hit her in the stomach. She lost her concentration and fell into the water, trying to catch her breath. "I told you to stay out!" a woman's voice said. Sailor Orca looked up. It was the woman who had appeared on the ocean the day before. "Who are you?" Sailor Orca asked. "That is no concern of yours!" the woman said. "You should know that you are not allowed in my territory." Her lips slowly curled into a wicked smile. "Death. so sorry." She said. Suddenly, the dolphins from before reappeared. They surrounded Sailor Orca on all sides. All of them started to make noises too high-pitched for normal human ears (though audible to all four Sailor Soldiers). The woman stopped. "Are you protecting her?" the woman said, startled. She looked at Sailor Orca. "Keep in mind, little girl, that I am Queen in this ocean. I'll spare you, for now." The woman vanished. Sailor Orca petted the dolphins some more as thanks, and swam ashore. When she got out of the water, Dinosaur and Argentavis were waiting for her. "Irika, I didn't know you were a Sailor Soldier too." Sailor Dinosaur said. "How did you know my name?" Sailor Orca said. "I might as well tell you who I am, since you're a fellow Soldier." Sailor Dinosaur said. She de-transformed. "Recognize me now?" Ryuu said. Sailor Orca looked startled. "You?" Sailor Orca said. Then she looked at Sailor Argentavis. "Judging from your height, you must be that new girl." "It's Akatsukinosorano Washi." "I'm Suiei Irika." Sailor Orca said, smiling happily.