This is generally where I explain questions and whatnot from the reviews.
Unfortunately, I have a habit of deleting the ff.net review emails, and tend
to go over there to read the reviews again to find out what I'm supposed to
respond to.
But FF.net is down right now, so that's kinda hard to do.
So you'll just have to deal with this fairly pointless babble...
Oh! Yeah, I almost forgot. In the next two weeks or so, my server should be
getting my payment and I'll finally have my domain name. I even have a
layout designed for it already! *smiles*
True Identity
Chapter Eleven: Bastet
For a week, "Amun-Ra" pulled random attacks.
For a week, Charon fought with the Senshi.
For a week, Bastet was "reprogrammed"
And for a week, Crawford had locked himself up in the computer room,
refusing to let anyone else enter. They all knew he was doing something
important, and theories flew wild-- Crawford's mental shields were far to
strong for Schuldich to break through.
He finally came out as Ranma-onna stepped out of her own room, dressed as
Bastet. It would be Bastet's first run, and it was Bastet's first time
wearing the outfit. She hated it at first sight.
A blood red bikini with black stripes, Apollo's thigh-high boots were now
black with blood red laces-- courtesy of Omi-- and her elbow length gloves
black silk with red piping. Red shoulder guards and a translucent black cape
that fell to her ankles matched a piece of black translucent fabric sewn
along the waist of the bikini bottom, like a skirt.
Her collar, still roughly inscribed with "Kitty", had been cleaned and
shined.
"I hate this outfit," she grumbled, plucking at her bikini top.
"Live with it," Crawford returned with a half-smile, "Where's Bombay?"
"Tsukiyono is," Ranma paused to stretch her senses over the House, "in
Nobuyuki's room."
The glasses-wearing man nodded his thanks, and headed in that direction.
Ranma-onna gave him an odd look, shrugged, and started for Aya's room.
Osiris was to be the one sent with Bastet to "ensure" her loyalty.
Bastet was anticipating bloodshed, licking her lips as her boots
click-click-clicked on the former warehouse's floor.
---
A wicked laugh spilled over the park, as the Senshi finally defeated Horus'
latest monster. They all shivered, but it was Charon who shrieked,
"_Bastet_!"
The martial artist turned Senshi turned villain released the full body
defense cloth, melting out of nothing to appear in front of Charon herself.
"Long time to see, I-chan," Bastet purred, placing her hands on either side
of the girl's face, "You're not going to trick me again, you do understand
that, don't you?"
"You already know that I'm Charon," the redhead bit out, removing Bastet's
hands from her person, "It's not like I could fake being one of _you_
again."
Bastet grinned, nodding, then lashed out with a sharp kick that sent the
grey Senshi flying. Her laughter rang out again, as she watched to make sure
Nagi caught her with his telekinesis. She had pulled the kick-- Rache was
her friend, after all.
"Don't play with the enemy, Bastet," Osiris' voice floated to them from a
nearby tree. The red and black garbed female rolled her eyes, but backed off
to Horus' side. She patted the black leather clad man on the shoulder.
"Yeah, stop playing with the enemy, Horus."
"Bitch," he snapped back, scowling darkly. She smirked devilishly at his
oh-so-angry facade. He growled at her, turning and stalking away. To the
Senshi he vanished mid-step.
Bastet cracked her knuckles, grinning in a terrifying sadisticical gleeful
way, "Now... I get to have some fun."
"Hold it, Evil-doer!" Sailormoon proclaimed, bouncing to her feet from where
she'd been kneeling beside an "unconscious" Charon. Once all the Senshi were
looking away, the redheaded pseudo-Senshi gave her "enemy" the thumbs up.
Bastet snorted haughtily, "What makes _me_ evil?"
"You've aligned yourself with the evil of Amun-Ra!" Venus stood proudly with
a fierce expression.
"Amun-Ra was considered a god only a few short millennia ago," Bastet
returned, waiting for her cue. Only a few more... bingo!
Charon's thumbs up shifted to an 'Ok!' hand sign, and Bastet's wicked grin
widened. In the middle of Mars' rant on how an aura of chaos, darkness or
blood meant 'evil' and 'demonic', Bastet launched herself forwards with an
axe kick ready to be executed.
It cut down on Jupiter's collarbone, and no magical protection had been
created to withstand ki-- at least, not for several _hundred_ _decades_
after the fall of the Silver Kingdom. The Senshi magic had not been updated
for modern times.
So Jupiter's collarbone shattered under the force of the blow.
And Bastet's expression turned to that of a sociopathic criminal about to
take out her next victim, "You could have just said I'm evil because I'm a
bloodthirsty murderer. I wouldn't have minded."
Jupiter had given a quickly cut off cry of pain before launching herself at
Bastet, wound and all. The brown haired Senshi's magic had dulled the pain,
and settled for fixing her injuries as she attacked. Afraid for their
friend, but unable to attack for fear of hitting Jupiter, the Inner Senshi
could only watch.
Moon and Mercury stayed behind with Charon as Jupiter and Bastet's "duel"
moved away from them. Mars and Venus followed, but were interrupted once out
of hearing and seeing range of the two remaining Senshi.
Osiris attacked Venus with his katana, and she barely summoned the Wink
Chain Sword, and got it into place to defend. The clash of metal on stone
was surprisingly loud.
Mars leapt forwards to help, but Horus snagged her in a web of wires. He
grinning icily, "I'm going to get you back for the time you tried to roast
me."
---
Back with Jupiter, the thunder Senshi found herself sprawled on the ground
lacking the use of her legs, "What did you--"
"Pressure points, Kino," Bastet interrupted with a wicked smirk, "This
particular beauty was used on me by a friend of mine who lives out in Kansai
now."
"You-- you-- you remember that?!" When Tuxedo Kamen had been taken, all his
memories had been suppressed. When Chibiusa had become Black Lady, _her_
memories were all seen in a negative light; she had no friends. But
Bastet...
"We'll let you in on a little secret before you die, Kino Makoto," a
strange, new voice came from the left. To her shock, a fifteen year old
stepped from the shadows, followed by the redheaded form of Charon's older
brother.
"You..." she stared at the redheaded male, "You... betrayed your one
sister...?"
"Unlikely," the fifteen year old's expression stayed surprisingly neutral,
"Schuldich is _highly_ overprotective of his sister."
"Amun-Ra speaks the truth," Schuldich snickered, "And you're been duped."
"Wha...?!"
'Bastet' leaned forwards with a grin, "There is _no_ Sailorapollo. There is
_no_ Sailorcharon. And now... there is _no_ Sailor_jupiter_."
The stunned Senshi could only stare as Bastet raised a hand, "Happo Go
Ensatsu revised: Spirit Obliteration!"
Jupiter shrieked with pain-- it felt as thought lightning burned through her
veins. Light was building around the two females. An eternal moment of pain
precluded a split second of icy numbness. In that second, she heard a nasal
German voice whisper through her mind.
/Crystal Tokyo will never rise.../
---
When the light faded, Bastet stared at the ground with a frown, "Damn. I
managed to convert all her ki into energy _I_ could use... but I _still_
haven't figured out a way to _not_ vaporize the body at the same time."
"It's probably for the best," Nagi crossed his arms, "They will believe they
have a chance to retrieve her."
Ranma looked confused, but Schuldich understood, "If they're hopeful that
they can get Jupiter back, they're not hopeless. Hopeless people are
reckless-- like you before you found Farfello, Bishoujo."
"Or like Ryouga," Ranma reasoned, proving that yes, she had gotten it. The
martial artist started back towards Aya and Yohji, "Will those other two be
dead? Oh, and don't call me that."
"It wasn't part of the plan," Schuldich mused, blatantly ignoring Ranma's
warning, "but we _all_ know Abyssian, Bishoujo."
The trio snickered amongst themselves, before coming onto the scene. Nagi
and Schuldich fell back, but Ranma continued forwards. Mars was tangled in
wires, and Venus was almost unconscious.
"Osiris! Horus!" she caroled, "Objective... captured!" she smirked at their
confused looks, "Amun-Ra demands our presence."
"Another time then, Venus," Osiris faded into the background. Horus followed
suit leaving Mars with, "Next time, we'll finish this."
Bastet gave a cheerful wave to the girls before slipping under the
Umi-Sen-Ken's invisibility technique once again, and slipping away.
The two Senshi picked themselves up once they felt capable of moving. Barely
dragging themselves forwards. When they got back to where the battle begun,
they understood just what Bastet had meant.
Jupiter was gone.
---
Nabiki was sprawled across her bed when Omi entered the room. Xian Phu
looked up from the book she was reading. The lavender haired Shield had
refused to stay with Tao Pei, feeling her place was with her Sorceress.
Omi was tossing a small bag and catching it, before he dropped it beside his
mistress, "Crawford had me get that and take out their guardian."
"What is it?" Nabiki plucked up the soft velvet bag, untying the ribbon that
bound it as Omi dropped himself onto her bed.
"Spirit Stones," Omi shrugged, "Apparently there's a bunch of dead guys in
them."
"So why are you giving them to me?" she asked, pulling out the shards of
kunzite, jadaeite, zoicite and nephrite, carefully inspecting them.
"Crawford knows about you being a Sorceress-- from his visions," he added
hastily at Nabiki's dark look, "He wants you to revive the 'Shitennou'."
---
End Chapter
For those of you who don't know what the Shitennou is, shame on you. I gave
it away when I named the stones. Going by the Manga SM time line for this
bit-- Mamoru had the spirits of the Four Kings in four shards of the stones
of their name. On one of occasion (I can't recall any others) the four
appeared to him to give him advice.
So, technically, Omi's telling Nabiki that he killed Mamoru to get the
stones.
Unfortunately, I have a habit of deleting the ff.net review emails, and tend
to go over there to read the reviews again to find out what I'm supposed to
respond to.
But FF.net is down right now, so that's kinda hard to do.
So you'll just have to deal with this fairly pointless babble...
Oh! Yeah, I almost forgot. In the next two weeks or so, my server should be
getting my payment and I'll finally have my domain name. I even have a
layout designed for it already! *smiles*
True Identity
Chapter Eleven: Bastet
For a week, "Amun-Ra" pulled random attacks.
For a week, Charon fought with the Senshi.
For a week, Bastet was "reprogrammed"
And for a week, Crawford had locked himself up in the computer room,
refusing to let anyone else enter. They all knew he was doing something
important, and theories flew wild-- Crawford's mental shields were far to
strong for Schuldich to break through.
He finally came out as Ranma-onna stepped out of her own room, dressed as
Bastet. It would be Bastet's first run, and it was Bastet's first time
wearing the outfit. She hated it at first sight.
A blood red bikini with black stripes, Apollo's thigh-high boots were now
black with blood red laces-- courtesy of Omi-- and her elbow length gloves
black silk with red piping. Red shoulder guards and a translucent black cape
that fell to her ankles matched a piece of black translucent fabric sewn
along the waist of the bikini bottom, like a skirt.
Her collar, still roughly inscribed with "Kitty", had been cleaned and
shined.
"I hate this outfit," she grumbled, plucking at her bikini top.
"Live with it," Crawford returned with a half-smile, "Where's Bombay?"
"Tsukiyono is," Ranma paused to stretch her senses over the House, "in
Nobuyuki's room."
The glasses-wearing man nodded his thanks, and headed in that direction.
Ranma-onna gave him an odd look, shrugged, and started for Aya's room.
Osiris was to be the one sent with Bastet to "ensure" her loyalty.
Bastet was anticipating bloodshed, licking her lips as her boots
click-click-clicked on the former warehouse's floor.
---
A wicked laugh spilled over the park, as the Senshi finally defeated Horus'
latest monster. They all shivered, but it was Charon who shrieked,
"_Bastet_!"
The martial artist turned Senshi turned villain released the full body
defense cloth, melting out of nothing to appear in front of Charon herself.
"Long time to see, I-chan," Bastet purred, placing her hands on either side
of the girl's face, "You're not going to trick me again, you do understand
that, don't you?"
"You already know that I'm Charon," the redhead bit out, removing Bastet's
hands from her person, "It's not like I could fake being one of _you_
again."
Bastet grinned, nodding, then lashed out with a sharp kick that sent the
grey Senshi flying. Her laughter rang out again, as she watched to make sure
Nagi caught her with his telekinesis. She had pulled the kick-- Rache was
her friend, after all.
"Don't play with the enemy, Bastet," Osiris' voice floated to them from a
nearby tree. The red and black garbed female rolled her eyes, but backed off
to Horus' side. She patted the black leather clad man on the shoulder.
"Yeah, stop playing with the enemy, Horus."
"Bitch," he snapped back, scowling darkly. She smirked devilishly at his
oh-so-angry facade. He growled at her, turning and stalking away. To the
Senshi he vanished mid-step.
Bastet cracked her knuckles, grinning in a terrifying sadisticical gleeful
way, "Now... I get to have some fun."
"Hold it, Evil-doer!" Sailormoon proclaimed, bouncing to her feet from where
she'd been kneeling beside an "unconscious" Charon. Once all the Senshi were
looking away, the redheaded pseudo-Senshi gave her "enemy" the thumbs up.
Bastet snorted haughtily, "What makes _me_ evil?"
"You've aligned yourself with the evil of Amun-Ra!" Venus stood proudly with
a fierce expression.
"Amun-Ra was considered a god only a few short millennia ago," Bastet
returned, waiting for her cue. Only a few more... bingo!
Charon's thumbs up shifted to an 'Ok!' hand sign, and Bastet's wicked grin
widened. In the middle of Mars' rant on how an aura of chaos, darkness or
blood meant 'evil' and 'demonic', Bastet launched herself forwards with an
axe kick ready to be executed.
It cut down on Jupiter's collarbone, and no magical protection had been
created to withstand ki-- at least, not for several _hundred_ _decades_
after the fall of the Silver Kingdom. The Senshi magic had not been updated
for modern times.
So Jupiter's collarbone shattered under the force of the blow.
And Bastet's expression turned to that of a sociopathic criminal about to
take out her next victim, "You could have just said I'm evil because I'm a
bloodthirsty murderer. I wouldn't have minded."
Jupiter had given a quickly cut off cry of pain before launching herself at
Bastet, wound and all. The brown haired Senshi's magic had dulled the pain,
and settled for fixing her injuries as she attacked. Afraid for their
friend, but unable to attack for fear of hitting Jupiter, the Inner Senshi
could only watch.
Moon and Mercury stayed behind with Charon as Jupiter and Bastet's "duel"
moved away from them. Mars and Venus followed, but were interrupted once out
of hearing and seeing range of the two remaining Senshi.
Osiris attacked Venus with his katana, and she barely summoned the Wink
Chain Sword, and got it into place to defend. The clash of metal on stone
was surprisingly loud.
Mars leapt forwards to help, but Horus snagged her in a web of wires. He
grinning icily, "I'm going to get you back for the time you tried to roast
me."
---
Back with Jupiter, the thunder Senshi found herself sprawled on the ground
lacking the use of her legs, "What did you--"
"Pressure points, Kino," Bastet interrupted with a wicked smirk, "This
particular beauty was used on me by a friend of mine who lives out in Kansai
now."
"You-- you-- you remember that?!" When Tuxedo Kamen had been taken, all his
memories had been suppressed. When Chibiusa had become Black Lady, _her_
memories were all seen in a negative light; she had no friends. But
Bastet...
"We'll let you in on a little secret before you die, Kino Makoto," a
strange, new voice came from the left. To her shock, a fifteen year old
stepped from the shadows, followed by the redheaded form of Charon's older
brother.
"You..." she stared at the redheaded male, "You... betrayed your one
sister...?"
"Unlikely," the fifteen year old's expression stayed surprisingly neutral,
"Schuldich is _highly_ overprotective of his sister."
"Amun-Ra speaks the truth," Schuldich snickered, "And you're been duped."
"Wha...?!"
'Bastet' leaned forwards with a grin, "There is _no_ Sailorapollo. There is
_no_ Sailorcharon. And now... there is _no_ Sailor_jupiter_."
The stunned Senshi could only stare as Bastet raised a hand, "Happo Go
Ensatsu revised: Spirit Obliteration!"
Jupiter shrieked with pain-- it felt as thought lightning burned through her
veins. Light was building around the two females. An eternal moment of pain
precluded a split second of icy numbness. In that second, she heard a nasal
German voice whisper through her mind.
/Crystal Tokyo will never rise.../
---
When the light faded, Bastet stared at the ground with a frown, "Damn. I
managed to convert all her ki into energy _I_ could use... but I _still_
haven't figured out a way to _not_ vaporize the body at the same time."
"It's probably for the best," Nagi crossed his arms, "They will believe they
have a chance to retrieve her."
Ranma looked confused, but Schuldich understood, "If they're hopeful that
they can get Jupiter back, they're not hopeless. Hopeless people are
reckless-- like you before you found Farfello, Bishoujo."
"Or like Ryouga," Ranma reasoned, proving that yes, she had gotten it. The
martial artist started back towards Aya and Yohji, "Will those other two be
dead? Oh, and don't call me that."
"It wasn't part of the plan," Schuldich mused, blatantly ignoring Ranma's
warning, "but we _all_ know Abyssian, Bishoujo."
The trio snickered amongst themselves, before coming onto the scene. Nagi
and Schuldich fell back, but Ranma continued forwards. Mars was tangled in
wires, and Venus was almost unconscious.
"Osiris! Horus!" she caroled, "Objective... captured!" she smirked at their
confused looks, "Amun-Ra demands our presence."
"Another time then, Venus," Osiris faded into the background. Horus followed
suit leaving Mars with, "Next time, we'll finish this."
Bastet gave a cheerful wave to the girls before slipping under the
Umi-Sen-Ken's invisibility technique once again, and slipping away.
The two Senshi picked themselves up once they felt capable of moving. Barely
dragging themselves forwards. When they got back to where the battle begun,
they understood just what Bastet had meant.
Jupiter was gone.
---
Nabiki was sprawled across her bed when Omi entered the room. Xian Phu
looked up from the book she was reading. The lavender haired Shield had
refused to stay with Tao Pei, feeling her place was with her Sorceress.
Omi was tossing a small bag and catching it, before he dropped it beside his
mistress, "Crawford had me get that and take out their guardian."
"What is it?" Nabiki plucked up the soft velvet bag, untying the ribbon that
bound it as Omi dropped himself onto her bed.
"Spirit Stones," Omi shrugged, "Apparently there's a bunch of dead guys in
them."
"So why are you giving them to me?" she asked, pulling out the shards of
kunzite, jadaeite, zoicite and nephrite, carefully inspecting them.
"Crawford knows about you being a Sorceress-- from his visions," he added
hastily at Nabiki's dark look, "He wants you to revive the 'Shitennou'."
---
End Chapter
For those of you who don't know what the Shitennou is, shame on you. I gave
it away when I named the stones. Going by the Manga SM time line for this
bit-- Mamoru had the spirits of the Four Kings in four shards of the stones
of their name. On one of occasion (I can't recall any others) the four
appeared to him to give him advice.
So, technically, Omi's telling Nabiki that he killed Mamoru to get the
stones.