Sailor Moon: World Rebirth -Part 1, The Gathering
Episode 10 'Mountain Rescue'
As it turned out, Makoto had her own boat, so they didn't have to go looking
for the one that Ami was planning on sending back. It was not exactly the
most seaworthy ship but it got the senshi to their destination, the outskirts of the
mountain region. It took them a couple of days to find the underwater passage,
on their fourth time around the region. They found it to be only about three feet in
diameter, about 10 feet below the water's surface. It was marked with an arrow
pointing down that was carved in to the rock. After they had gotten into their scuba gear,
Haiku put all of their equipment, food and their packs, into air bubbles.
"Why didn't you just do that for us?" Rei asked.
"We have no idea how long this cavern is, and this type of air bubble sucks
the air out so we can take the stuff with us. These air packs we're
strapping to our backs should have at least 4 hours of air, and I doubt
we'll need that much. If we haven't reached anything in 2 hours we'll turn
around and come back. After nailing their ship to the rock, they jumped into
the water. They slowly descended, taking things as they came since none of
them had actually done this before. One by one they entered the cavern.
It very quickly grew dark, so they switched on their lights that they had
strapped to the backs of their hands. It was a tight squeeze, and as soon as
they were all in, the entrance to the cavern colapsed, blocking any way of
going back. Even if they could have gone back it wouldn't have done much
good because the nail that was in the mountain slid out and the hole filled
up. The ship floated away.
After about ten minutes the cavern got even smaller, giving them an even
harder time of fitting through. It was scary. If at any point the cavern
suddenly got very narrow one of them could have gotten stuck very easily.
After about half an hour the cavern widened back out. Then they entered a
very big cavern. There were crystals all over the walls and roof. Haiku
motioned not to touch any of them. It was quite beautiful, the way the
crystals reflected their lights. As they went farther into the cavern there
began to be less and less crystals. Then at one point the crystals just
stopped. What took their place was multiple feet of moss. It was like the
cavern had living walls. There were fish swimming in and out of them. The
walls of moss were even moving. 'Gross,' Haiku thought.
Luckily, that part of the cavern was really short. Unfortunately they had to
go through a hole in the moss to get to the next cavern. They had to swerve
back and forth through the moss and it turned out to be a lot longer than
they had thought. Eventually it led into a regular rock tunnel leading up.
This tunnel had quite a bit of space in it. In a few minutes the tunnel
pointed forwards again. After they had passed through it they found
themselves falling. It seems that the water from that tunnel shot out of a
wall into a little pond. Only it was a 50 foot drop, and the surface of the
water was only one foot from the bottom. Needless to say, the landing hurt.
They managed to walk away with just cuts, scrapes and bruises. They ripped
off their masks as soon as they could. "Jeez, I thought we'd never get out
of there." They were in a pond about 1 foot deep. All of the water was
clear, and it seemed that the water was absorbed into the rock. All around
them were rock walls. But unlike the ones on the edge of the region. These
ones actually looked climbable. On one side of the pond was a ledge. They
waded over to it and changed out of their diving gear. They decided to leave
the gear here as it would only weigh them down while they were climbing.
Next, they strapped on their packs and the rock climbing gear.
From the ledge to the top seemed to be the shortest route to climb so they
took it. Haiku, then Minako, Makoto, and Rei. Haiku had had some training in
mountain climbing and so had Minako. They managed to reach the top with only
a few slips. At the top, was the other side of the wall to scale down. But
first they took a look at the region. Unfortunately, all they could see were
a bunch of mountains, and the top of the Control Point towering over all of
the mountains. So they repelled down the other side.
Rei led them along a rocky path, in between two mountains. It was a lot
easier than trying to climb over. At some points they had to squeeze
through. But after that they were through. Now there were a lot less
mountains in between them and the Control Point. They decided to climb the
next mountain. It wasn't too difficult. It was more like a hill; it was one
of the smaller mountains. In about an hour, they had reached the top. They
were stunned by what they saw below. It was a valley, and I do mean was.
Everything of it was dead. And in the middle, were ten nega-essences. "Oh
no."
They all turned away from the edge. "What do we do now?" Minako asked.
"I don't know," Haiku said. "But where are the blood hounds?"
Rei took another look into the valley. "There's a ring of them around the
bottom of the valley, and we passed through another ring when we went
through that path in between the mountains."
"What are they?" Makoto asked.
"They're called nega-essences. They drain energy. The blood hounds look like
wolves, only worse. They're a dark red colour so blood doesn't show up on
their fur. They're the scouts for the nega-essences."
"I think that each of your powers will work once on each creature. Then the
creatures will be able to absorb your powers. Don't worry about the blood
hounds, anything will take them out. I think we should circle around them,
along the top of the mountain."
"Uh Haiku, the outer ring of blood hounds is now moving inwards, towards
us."
"What?" Haiku looked over at where she saw the blood hounds and they were
gone. Farther down they were running down the mountain.
"Jeez those things can move fast."
"Okay, change that plan. At the other side of the clearing down below
there's a cave. It's too small for the nega-essences to pass through, but I
think we can."
"You think we can?"
"Just transform." Sailor Mars brought out her power stick and Makoto and
Minako went back to back.
"Jupiter Eternal,"
"Venus Eternal,"
"Unite!"
"Mars Eternal, Unite!"
The senshi ran straight down the mountain towards the group of
nega-essences. They slipped in between rocks and outcrops so that they
wouldn't be seen. Before the blood hounds knew it, the senshi were through
their defences. The senshi started to let out tiny blasts of energy to take
out the blood hounds that approached them and Haiku cut them down with her
sword from behind. The senshi circled around the nega-essences. Sailor Mars
let out a super heat wave that gave the nega-essences serious burns, and
burned up a lot of tentacles. A couple were wounded so badly that they tried
to suck energy out of the others. It allowed the senshi to get themselves
circled around to the side of the valley with the cave.
Sailor Mars and Haiku ran up ahead, as now neither of them could do any harm
to the nega-essence. They picked off any blood hounds that approached them.
"Sailor Venus. Your turn," Sailor Jupiter said.
"Right. Venus Crescent Cross...." She waited until the cross was in the
center of all of the nega-essences. "CRUSH!" The sphere of energy cut in and
out of all of them, seriously damaging about 5 of them. Haiku and Sailor Mars
reached the cave first and hurried inside. It was so small they had to get
down and crawl through. Sailor Venus followed. Sailor Jupiter turned back to
the nega-essence.
"Jupiter Lightning Wave Capture." A cage of lightning formed around the
nega-essences. Sailor Jupiter hurried into the cave. Once she was in, she
set a wall of lightning over the entrance. She then hurried on with her
friends, through the cave. They moved for a while through the cave. When the
entrance was out of sight and there was no sign of pursuit, Sailor Jupiter
called up that there wasn't. They all stopped and passed messages back and
forth. "I think they're stopped for now," Sailor Jupiter said.
"Good," replied Haiku at the front, "I see a little hole of light just up
ahead and I want the rest of you to stay here for a sec."
"But what if you need our help?"
"Then I'll come back for it. If it's something dangerous I want us to be
able to get away as fast as we can."
"As if there was anything that we could get away to without being in more
danger," Sailor Mars muttered. Haiku crawled forward up to the hole and
peeked through. It was nice to see light. She was surprised to what she saw
inside. It was a small cavern, with a few candles around the edges. It was
some kind of kid playhouse. There were toys all over the floor and three
kids playing in it. On the far wall there was a small crawl-through entrance
which probably led outside. Haiku didn't say anything in fear of scaring
them away. The passage between where she was and the cavern was piled up
with rocks, and if done the right way, could easily be removed. Haiku backed
up back through the tunnel to the others.
"What is it?" Sailor Mars asked.
"It appears to be a children's cave. You know, like a secret fort. There are
three young children inside. What the hole is, is a hole in a poorly made
blockade. The other side of the cavern probably leads outside. A little ways
back there was a little bit of a bulge in the tunnel we're in. I'd like to
go back to that and I want Sailor Venus to come up here with me."
So they went back a little ways in the tunnel. Sailor Venus first squeezed
passed Sailor Mars. In the middle they got a little stuck. But after sliding
back and forth for a while and pulling and pushing they got past each other.
Sailor Venus had an easy time passing Haiku because she was smaller than
Mars. "Rei and Makoto, you should transform back out of your sailor fukus
and Minako, you should switch back as soon as you've blasted away the
barrier."
"Okay." The senshi all together moved up to the hole in the wall. Sailor
Venus looked through it. There were two girls and a boy, all within a few
years of age among each other. They were drawing in some sand that they had
brought in to the cave.
"Excuse me," Sailor Venus said. The children looked up in shock. Wondering
where the voice could have come from.
The oldest, at about 8 years old asked, "Who's there. What do you want?"
"Could you darlings move over to the entrance of the cave. I wouldn't want
you to get hurt." Probably from fear the kids hurried over to the door. But
they were all trying to get out at the same time so they weren't getting
anywhere.
"Darlings?" Rei asked from behind. "What kind of name is that?"
"A friendly one," Sailor Venus called back. She put her finger to the rock
and concentrated. At her finger, energy started to swirl around. It kept on
spinning until it formed a cross, and then stopped. The cross expanded into
the 3-d block, expanding to the other side of the barrier. Then a hole
opened up in the center of the cross and grew until the barrier was gone.
The power of the cross stayed in a ring around the tunnel. It stirred up a
great amount of dust so no one could see anything. Sailor Venus powered down
and crawled through the hole. She sat off to the side, as she was followed
by Haiku, Rei, and Makoto.
One of the younger children, who wouldn't have known better ran towards the
hole that they came through. "All right, a new tunnel!"
Haiku caught his arm before he could go in and pulled him back. "I don't
advise you go in there. We were running away from some bad creatures."
Minako put her hands over the tunnel. "I'll take care of it." She placed a
finger at the middle of the passage and the ring around the sides shot
towards her finger so that now it was around it. As the ring grew smaller,
the barrier was replaced. Finally she pulled out her finger and the ring
closed on itself, closing the little hole.
The small room was pretty cramped with the four senshi and the three children in it now.
Haiku turned to the older girl. "Hello, my name is Haiku. This is Minako,
Rei, and Makoto. Could you tell us where we are?"
The little boy who was still in the middle of the room spoke up. "You're in
our secret fort. Please get out. Please don't hurt us."
"I mean what's outside. Is there a village anywhere? We're from outside the
mountains, and we have never been here before. Don't worry we're not going
to hurt you."
"But Mama said that no one could come to our village from the outside.
She'll want to meet you." The girl went outside and was followed by the girl
who was slightly younger than her and the little boy. This tunnel was even
smaller than the other one and the girls had to lay down and pull themselves
through. It was still a very tight squeeze. Outside was a field. Across to
the other side of it were some trees. The girl spoke up. "My name is Karen.
This is my sister, Tina, and my brother, Henry. Now come on we have to hurry
across the field. It isn't protected." The children started to run across
the field. The girls followed.
Suddenly from above them dropped a nega-essence. "Oh no. A draining thing.
Run!" The children turned around and ran the other way, but the nega-essence
was fast. It shot out tentacles and grabbed them quickly. It started
draining them.
"Will our powers work against it Haiku?" Rei asked.
"I don't think it's one we've faced before. And it's only a child. Much
smaller than the others we fought."
"Mars Eternal, Unite!"
"Jupiter Eternal,"
"Venus Eternal,"
"...Unite!"
"If we all use our powers together we should be able to defeat it
completely. Mars Flaming Inferno Blaze!" Sailor Mars shot fire at the
nega-essence that engulfed it. Its tentacles let go of the kids and shot
back to its body. Sailor Mars kept up her onsault.
"Jupiter Lightning Wave Shock!" Sailor Jupiter shot lightning at the
creature and it began to disappear.
"It's working! Venus Crescent Cross ...Crush!" As Venus' sphere shot back
out of the nega-essence there was a gigantic explosion that knocked all of
the senshi off of their feet. When next they looked there was nothing left.
"Yeah!" Sailor Venus cheered.
Sailor Mars pointed to the mountains they had just come from. "If that was a
child, I think here come its parents." Over the top of the mountains, the
senshi could see two REALLY big nega-essences coming. Way bigger than any
that they had fought before.
"I think we better get out of here," Haiku said. "Grab the children and lets
get out of here!" It had not taken the young nega-essence very long to drain
the kids. Haiku grabbed Karen, Sailor Venus grabbed Tina and Sailor Mars
grabbed Henry. Sailor Jupiter shot a temporary cage around the approaching
nega-essences. As they ran across the field, Karen began to wake up. Haiku
spoke to her quickly. "Is there anywhere where we can hide? We need to get
out of here."
Karen struggled to keep conscious. "Over ...in the trees ...is our
village... ...shield there ...will protect us." Karen slipped back into
unconsciousness.
"Head for the trees," Haiku called. Haiku handed Karen off to Sailor Jupiter
because the senshi could move much faster than her. She ran behind them as
fast as she could. As they neared the forest, the nega-essences really began
to catch up. Sailor Venus reached the trees first. As she reached them there
was a sparkling tingle in the the air around her. Then Sailor Jupiter and
Mars. Just as a nega-essence reached out a tentacle, Haiku passed through
the shield.
The nega-essences crashed into the shield and fell to the ground. Then they
were shocked by energy which resulted in them to hurry away while screaming
in pain.
The senshi watched them go and then went into the forest. Actually, it was
just a border of trees. After they had walked for a little bit the trees
opened up into a valley in between the mountains. In the valley were
hundreds of little houses made out of stone. Ahead of them, just over
another mountain was the Command Point. Just ahead of them were gates into
the city. Unless it was over the next mountain, there was no Command City in
this region. There were already people coming out of their houses, as
nega-essences scream very loudly when they are in pain.
As they entered the gates a woman came up to them. "Oh dear, what happened
to them. Who are you?"
"Don't worry," Haiku assured. "They've just have their energy drained."
"Oh I told them not to go outside the borders. But where are you from? What
do you want?"
"We'll explain everything. Let's get the children taken care of first." the
woman led them to one of the houses. By now they had gathered quite a crowd.
All kinds of people were asking questions. The senshi followed Haiku's lead
and ignored them. The houses were made half above ground and half below.
When the children were laid down the senshi came back outside. Haiku spoke
to the people.
"Hello. My name is Haiku. These are the sailor senshi; Mars, Venus, and
Jupiter."
"But how did you get here? There is no way to get into our region. Only one
other has and they wouldn't tell us how."
"There is an underwater passage into the region. It would be very hard to go
back through it, but it is quite easy to go from outside to in here. But you
need not worry. There are very few people who know about it, so you are safe
from outside threats. Now that you know something of us, could you tell me
some of your history?" No one from resistance had managed to get this far into
the region, and any planes that tried to make it over the outer wall were shot down.
An elderly man stepped forward. "I am the chief of these people. Welcome to
Rashka. In this village we are protected from the Negessences. At the end of
the darkness, many people found their way here. Life was pretty good. But
then the negessences came. What they would do would be to come every so
often and drain our energy. But, they'd leave enough energy so that we could
recover, and come back another day. Then there were two people, who
discovered the strands of magic, and how to use them. They found that the
strands were extremely dangerous and if they just fought the negessences
when they came the backlash would kill them. So, they gathered all of the
magic they could, and stood at opposite sides of the village. That is where
they released all of the built up magic and their own life energy to form
the shield. The only problem was that they turned themselves to stone
because if the magic energy from the strands of magic left the shield would
disappear. Because the power of the strands of magic is infinite the shield
always stays there. Because of that we are safe of the negessences."
Haiku thanked the man. "I have a message. 'If you crave the old times, or
something better, then meet your destiny at The Gathering. If you're cause
is true, when the sky turns green, you will find you're way to Crescent
Island."
"What will happen?"
"The messiah will come and the lives of the Creators will be cut short. Now,
off with that, you said that someone else also came here. Who was it?"
"Well, she was wearing a similar uniform as you, I think she said she said
she was from Uranus or something. She didn't really explain."
"Good. Now where is she now?"
"At the far side of the village is a temple. A temple that is our job to
guard. All we know of it is that it has the symbols of three of the outer
planets on it. She went there. She left just before you got here."
"Good. We're just in time. Could you show us where the temple is? We really
need her help."
"Certainly. Follow me." The senshi followed the man across the village, with
a whole bunch of villagers behind. "I don't really know what you can do. It
says only the princess and her court can enter. We've tried all kinds of
different things to get in without success."
"We are members of the princess' court."
The temple was fairly small. All it was was a building with double doors on
the front. On the doors were the symbols of Uranus, Pluto, and Neptune. To
the sides of the doors was writing on the walls. Suddenly the man stopped
within ten feet of the temple. "The shield ends here. I wish you luck on
whatever you are going to do."
"Thank you," Haiku said. "Now come on guys, I have a feeling that Sailor
Uranus is going to need our help." The doors of the temple opened easily for
the senshi. In front of them was a stairway that they hurried up. At the top
they came to a platform. At the other side of the room was a pedestal with
the artifact on it. Sailor Uranus was there, reaching for it. "Uranus,"
Haiku called. Sailor Uranus turned back.
"Huh? ....so you're okay. Now with this I'll be able to find Michiru after all this
time."
"But we already know where she is. She's on an island in the middle of the
ocean."
"She is? That's good. But we'll still need this to reach our full power."
Sailor Uranus reached for the medallion. As soon as she touched it, it
flashed in power and turned into the space sword, the deep sea mirror and
the garnet orb. When she touched the sword the other two talismen
disappeared. Suddenly the ground started to shake. The walls of the temple
fell out and the platform they were on started to rise. It rose high, high
into the sky. When it stopped, people were just tiny specks below. Then from
the hole where the temple was, a dragon emerged. It was a tan colour. "What
is that?!"
"It's a chaos dragon." The dragon was taking its time to fly up to where
they were. Suddenly a nega-essence flew up to them.
"Not another one of these nuisances," Sailor Uranus muttered. "Uranus Meteor
Comets!" Sailor Uranus moved forward and brought her hands up into the air.
A ball of energy formed in them. Then she brought her hands down and threw
the ball of energy at the nega-essence. As she brought her arms down she
finished saying 'comets' The energy knocked the nega-essence back. Then
meteors began to appear out of nowhere and pummelled the beast. In a very
short time the nega-essence was destroyed. Then the dragon flew up to them.
Sailor Uranus repeated the attack but the meteors just bounced off of the
dragon. "No! Now what?!"
"I am the Chaos Dragon of Soil! You have no chance against me!" The
dragon shocked the senshi with dark energy.
Sailor Venus ran over to Uranus. "You need to focus all of your attack into
a single beam."
"No," Haiku called. "Haruka, use the sword."
Sailor Uranus made the space sword appear. "Uranus Space Sword Meteor
Comets!" This time in her attack when she threw the ball of energy at the
dragon the space sword was in her hands. The additional power of the sword
changed the attack. The ball of energy shot up into the air, and then tons
of streaming comets showered onto the beast. It melted its scales that were
protecting it. Then when the meteors began, the chaos dragon had no chance.
All that was left was a tan coloured scale which floated down to Sailor
Uranus. "What do I do with this?" she asked.
"Just attach it to your back bow like me." She did so.
Suddenly the platform they were on started to shake. Now that the dragon
wasn't holding it in the sky it was going to fall. "Oh no! The platform's
going to fall." On the horizon something was speeding towards them at an
incredible speed. In a few seconds it was at the platform. It was Haiku's
spaceship! Only now it had side doors, which opened immediately, and
permanent wings. Haiku and Minako recognized it immediately and went through
the door. "There are seats in the back," Ami called from the cockpit.
"No there aren't," Haiku called back.
"There are now." Sailor Venus went back to where she and Haiku had been, and
sure enough, now there were seats there instead. She sat down. Haiku went up
to the cockpit. All of the other senshi piled into the back. In the cockpit,
there were still three seats. One next to the controls and two just behind.
Ami sat in the front seat and Prof. Rinkvle was in one of the ones back a
little. After Haiku sat down, he reached out and shook her hand. "Hi. I'm
Prof. Rinkvle. You have a fine ship here."
"Yeah, okay. Ami, everyone's in. Let's get out of here. You have great
timing."
"Alright, here we go." Just as the platform fell, the ship took off. A few shots came
streaming out of the Command Point but Ami was able to dodge them easily.
"I think we have some explaining to do. It's good to have you back Ami."
"Professor Rinkvle, would you take the controls please?" Ami asked, "Just
hover for a while away from any Command Points."
Ami and Haiku went back to where the other senshi were. Now they had all
transformed out of their fukus. Haruka spoke up. "So you actually met
Michiru? She's okay?"
"Yeah, but she thinks you're dead." Haiku answered.
"Exactly how long ago was that?" asked Minako.
"Why? ...I don't know, let's see, ....I'd say, three weeks on the dot. Ami?"
"Yeah that'd be right. Why do you want to know Minako?"
"In how much time did Michiru say she was getting married?"
" Three weeks," Haiku answered. For a second no one said anything.
Then, "Ami, set a course for Dohilne Island. I guess Haruka, that our
introductions are going to have to wait." Ami and Haiku returned to the
cockpit and their ship sped off towards Dohilne. Would they be in time?
Episode 10 'Mountain Rescue'
As it turned out, Makoto had her own boat, so they didn't have to go looking
for the one that Ami was planning on sending back. It was not exactly the
most seaworthy ship but it got the senshi to their destination, the outskirts of the
mountain region. It took them a couple of days to find the underwater passage,
on their fourth time around the region. They found it to be only about three feet in
diameter, about 10 feet below the water's surface. It was marked with an arrow
pointing down that was carved in to the rock. After they had gotten into their scuba gear,
Haiku put all of their equipment, food and their packs, into air bubbles.
"Why didn't you just do that for us?" Rei asked.
"We have no idea how long this cavern is, and this type of air bubble sucks
the air out so we can take the stuff with us. These air packs we're
strapping to our backs should have at least 4 hours of air, and I doubt
we'll need that much. If we haven't reached anything in 2 hours we'll turn
around and come back. After nailing their ship to the rock, they jumped into
the water. They slowly descended, taking things as they came since none of
them had actually done this before. One by one they entered the cavern.
It very quickly grew dark, so they switched on their lights that they had
strapped to the backs of their hands. It was a tight squeeze, and as soon as
they were all in, the entrance to the cavern colapsed, blocking any way of
going back. Even if they could have gone back it wouldn't have done much
good because the nail that was in the mountain slid out and the hole filled
up. The ship floated away.
After about ten minutes the cavern got even smaller, giving them an even
harder time of fitting through. It was scary. If at any point the cavern
suddenly got very narrow one of them could have gotten stuck very easily.
After about half an hour the cavern widened back out. Then they entered a
very big cavern. There were crystals all over the walls and roof. Haiku
motioned not to touch any of them. It was quite beautiful, the way the
crystals reflected their lights. As they went farther into the cavern there
began to be less and less crystals. Then at one point the crystals just
stopped. What took their place was multiple feet of moss. It was like the
cavern had living walls. There were fish swimming in and out of them. The
walls of moss were even moving. 'Gross,' Haiku thought.
Luckily, that part of the cavern was really short. Unfortunately they had to
go through a hole in the moss to get to the next cavern. They had to swerve
back and forth through the moss and it turned out to be a lot longer than
they had thought. Eventually it led into a regular rock tunnel leading up.
This tunnel had quite a bit of space in it. In a few minutes the tunnel
pointed forwards again. After they had passed through it they found
themselves falling. It seems that the water from that tunnel shot out of a
wall into a little pond. Only it was a 50 foot drop, and the surface of the
water was only one foot from the bottom. Needless to say, the landing hurt.
They managed to walk away with just cuts, scrapes and bruises. They ripped
off their masks as soon as they could. "Jeez, I thought we'd never get out
of there." They were in a pond about 1 foot deep. All of the water was
clear, and it seemed that the water was absorbed into the rock. All around
them were rock walls. But unlike the ones on the edge of the region. These
ones actually looked climbable. On one side of the pond was a ledge. They
waded over to it and changed out of their diving gear. They decided to leave
the gear here as it would only weigh them down while they were climbing.
Next, they strapped on their packs and the rock climbing gear.
From the ledge to the top seemed to be the shortest route to climb so they
took it. Haiku, then Minako, Makoto, and Rei. Haiku had had some training in
mountain climbing and so had Minako. They managed to reach the top with only
a few slips. At the top, was the other side of the wall to scale down. But
first they took a look at the region. Unfortunately, all they could see were
a bunch of mountains, and the top of the Control Point towering over all of
the mountains. So they repelled down the other side.
Rei led them along a rocky path, in between two mountains. It was a lot
easier than trying to climb over. At some points they had to squeeze
through. But after that they were through. Now there were a lot less
mountains in between them and the Control Point. They decided to climb the
next mountain. It wasn't too difficult. It was more like a hill; it was one
of the smaller mountains. In about an hour, they had reached the top. They
were stunned by what they saw below. It was a valley, and I do mean was.
Everything of it was dead. And in the middle, were ten nega-essences. "Oh
no."
They all turned away from the edge. "What do we do now?" Minako asked.
"I don't know," Haiku said. "But where are the blood hounds?"
Rei took another look into the valley. "There's a ring of them around the
bottom of the valley, and we passed through another ring when we went
through that path in between the mountains."
"What are they?" Makoto asked.
"They're called nega-essences. They drain energy. The blood hounds look like
wolves, only worse. They're a dark red colour so blood doesn't show up on
their fur. They're the scouts for the nega-essences."
"I think that each of your powers will work once on each creature. Then the
creatures will be able to absorb your powers. Don't worry about the blood
hounds, anything will take them out. I think we should circle around them,
along the top of the mountain."
"Uh Haiku, the outer ring of blood hounds is now moving inwards, towards
us."
"What?" Haiku looked over at where she saw the blood hounds and they were
gone. Farther down they were running down the mountain.
"Jeez those things can move fast."
"Okay, change that plan. At the other side of the clearing down below
there's a cave. It's too small for the nega-essences to pass through, but I
think we can."
"You think we can?"
"Just transform." Sailor Mars brought out her power stick and Makoto and
Minako went back to back.
"Jupiter Eternal,"
"Venus Eternal,"
"Unite!"
"Mars Eternal, Unite!"
The senshi ran straight down the mountain towards the group of
nega-essences. They slipped in between rocks and outcrops so that they
wouldn't be seen. Before the blood hounds knew it, the senshi were through
their defences. The senshi started to let out tiny blasts of energy to take
out the blood hounds that approached them and Haiku cut them down with her
sword from behind. The senshi circled around the nega-essences. Sailor Mars
let out a super heat wave that gave the nega-essences serious burns, and
burned up a lot of tentacles. A couple were wounded so badly that they tried
to suck energy out of the others. It allowed the senshi to get themselves
circled around to the side of the valley with the cave.
Sailor Mars and Haiku ran up ahead, as now neither of them could do any harm
to the nega-essence. They picked off any blood hounds that approached them.
"Sailor Venus. Your turn," Sailor Jupiter said.
"Right. Venus Crescent Cross...." She waited until the cross was in the
center of all of the nega-essences. "CRUSH!" The sphere of energy cut in and
out of all of them, seriously damaging about 5 of them. Haiku and Sailor Mars
reached the cave first and hurried inside. It was so small they had to get
down and crawl through. Sailor Venus followed. Sailor Jupiter turned back to
the nega-essence.
"Jupiter Lightning Wave Capture." A cage of lightning formed around the
nega-essences. Sailor Jupiter hurried into the cave. Once she was in, she
set a wall of lightning over the entrance. She then hurried on with her
friends, through the cave. They moved for a while through the cave. When the
entrance was out of sight and there was no sign of pursuit, Sailor Jupiter
called up that there wasn't. They all stopped and passed messages back and
forth. "I think they're stopped for now," Sailor Jupiter said.
"Good," replied Haiku at the front, "I see a little hole of light just up
ahead and I want the rest of you to stay here for a sec."
"But what if you need our help?"
"Then I'll come back for it. If it's something dangerous I want us to be
able to get away as fast as we can."
"As if there was anything that we could get away to without being in more
danger," Sailor Mars muttered. Haiku crawled forward up to the hole and
peeked through. It was nice to see light. She was surprised to what she saw
inside. It was a small cavern, with a few candles around the edges. It was
some kind of kid playhouse. There were toys all over the floor and three
kids playing in it. On the far wall there was a small crawl-through entrance
which probably led outside. Haiku didn't say anything in fear of scaring
them away. The passage between where she was and the cavern was piled up
with rocks, and if done the right way, could easily be removed. Haiku backed
up back through the tunnel to the others.
"What is it?" Sailor Mars asked.
"It appears to be a children's cave. You know, like a secret fort. There are
three young children inside. What the hole is, is a hole in a poorly made
blockade. The other side of the cavern probably leads outside. A little ways
back there was a little bit of a bulge in the tunnel we're in. I'd like to
go back to that and I want Sailor Venus to come up here with me."
So they went back a little ways in the tunnel. Sailor Venus first squeezed
passed Sailor Mars. In the middle they got a little stuck. But after sliding
back and forth for a while and pulling and pushing they got past each other.
Sailor Venus had an easy time passing Haiku because she was smaller than
Mars. "Rei and Makoto, you should transform back out of your sailor fukus
and Minako, you should switch back as soon as you've blasted away the
barrier."
"Okay." The senshi all together moved up to the hole in the wall. Sailor
Venus looked through it. There were two girls and a boy, all within a few
years of age among each other. They were drawing in some sand that they had
brought in to the cave.
"Excuse me," Sailor Venus said. The children looked up in shock. Wondering
where the voice could have come from.
The oldest, at about 8 years old asked, "Who's there. What do you want?"
"Could you darlings move over to the entrance of the cave. I wouldn't want
you to get hurt." Probably from fear the kids hurried over to the door. But
they were all trying to get out at the same time so they weren't getting
anywhere.
"Darlings?" Rei asked from behind. "What kind of name is that?"
"A friendly one," Sailor Venus called back. She put her finger to the rock
and concentrated. At her finger, energy started to swirl around. It kept on
spinning until it formed a cross, and then stopped. The cross expanded into
the 3-d block, expanding to the other side of the barrier. Then a hole
opened up in the center of the cross and grew until the barrier was gone.
The power of the cross stayed in a ring around the tunnel. It stirred up a
great amount of dust so no one could see anything. Sailor Venus powered down
and crawled through the hole. She sat off to the side, as she was followed
by Haiku, Rei, and Makoto.
One of the younger children, who wouldn't have known better ran towards the
hole that they came through. "All right, a new tunnel!"
Haiku caught his arm before he could go in and pulled him back. "I don't
advise you go in there. We were running away from some bad creatures."
Minako put her hands over the tunnel. "I'll take care of it." She placed a
finger at the middle of the passage and the ring around the sides shot
towards her finger so that now it was around it. As the ring grew smaller,
the barrier was replaced. Finally she pulled out her finger and the ring
closed on itself, closing the little hole.
The small room was pretty cramped with the four senshi and the three children in it now.
Haiku turned to the older girl. "Hello, my name is Haiku. This is Minako,
Rei, and Makoto. Could you tell us where we are?"
The little boy who was still in the middle of the room spoke up. "You're in
our secret fort. Please get out. Please don't hurt us."
"I mean what's outside. Is there a village anywhere? We're from outside the
mountains, and we have never been here before. Don't worry we're not going
to hurt you."
"But Mama said that no one could come to our village from the outside.
She'll want to meet you." The girl went outside and was followed by the girl
who was slightly younger than her and the little boy. This tunnel was even
smaller than the other one and the girls had to lay down and pull themselves
through. It was still a very tight squeeze. Outside was a field. Across to
the other side of it were some trees. The girl spoke up. "My name is Karen.
This is my sister, Tina, and my brother, Henry. Now come on we have to hurry
across the field. It isn't protected." The children started to run across
the field. The girls followed.
Suddenly from above them dropped a nega-essence. "Oh no. A draining thing.
Run!" The children turned around and ran the other way, but the nega-essence
was fast. It shot out tentacles and grabbed them quickly. It started
draining them.
"Will our powers work against it Haiku?" Rei asked.
"I don't think it's one we've faced before. And it's only a child. Much
smaller than the others we fought."
"Mars Eternal, Unite!"
"Jupiter Eternal,"
"Venus Eternal,"
"...Unite!"
"If we all use our powers together we should be able to defeat it
completely. Mars Flaming Inferno Blaze!" Sailor Mars shot fire at the
nega-essence that engulfed it. Its tentacles let go of the kids and shot
back to its body. Sailor Mars kept up her onsault.
"Jupiter Lightning Wave Shock!" Sailor Jupiter shot lightning at the
creature and it began to disappear.
"It's working! Venus Crescent Cross ...Crush!" As Venus' sphere shot back
out of the nega-essence there was a gigantic explosion that knocked all of
the senshi off of their feet. When next they looked there was nothing left.
"Yeah!" Sailor Venus cheered.
Sailor Mars pointed to the mountains they had just come from. "If that was a
child, I think here come its parents." Over the top of the mountains, the
senshi could see two REALLY big nega-essences coming. Way bigger than any
that they had fought before.
"I think we better get out of here," Haiku said. "Grab the children and lets
get out of here!" It had not taken the young nega-essence very long to drain
the kids. Haiku grabbed Karen, Sailor Venus grabbed Tina and Sailor Mars
grabbed Henry. Sailor Jupiter shot a temporary cage around the approaching
nega-essences. As they ran across the field, Karen began to wake up. Haiku
spoke to her quickly. "Is there anywhere where we can hide? We need to get
out of here."
Karen struggled to keep conscious. "Over ...in the trees ...is our
village... ...shield there ...will protect us." Karen slipped back into
unconsciousness.
"Head for the trees," Haiku called. Haiku handed Karen off to Sailor Jupiter
because the senshi could move much faster than her. She ran behind them as
fast as she could. As they neared the forest, the nega-essences really began
to catch up. Sailor Venus reached the trees first. As she reached them there
was a sparkling tingle in the the air around her. Then Sailor Jupiter and
Mars. Just as a nega-essence reached out a tentacle, Haiku passed through
the shield.
The nega-essences crashed into the shield and fell to the ground. Then they
were shocked by energy which resulted in them to hurry away while screaming
in pain.
The senshi watched them go and then went into the forest. Actually, it was
just a border of trees. After they had walked for a little bit the trees
opened up into a valley in between the mountains. In the valley were
hundreds of little houses made out of stone. Ahead of them, just over
another mountain was the Command Point. Just ahead of them were gates into
the city. Unless it was over the next mountain, there was no Command City in
this region. There were already people coming out of their houses, as
nega-essences scream very loudly when they are in pain.
As they entered the gates a woman came up to them. "Oh dear, what happened
to them. Who are you?"
"Don't worry," Haiku assured. "They've just have their energy drained."
"Oh I told them not to go outside the borders. But where are you from? What
do you want?"
"We'll explain everything. Let's get the children taken care of first." the
woman led them to one of the houses. By now they had gathered quite a crowd.
All kinds of people were asking questions. The senshi followed Haiku's lead
and ignored them. The houses were made half above ground and half below.
When the children were laid down the senshi came back outside. Haiku spoke
to the people.
"Hello. My name is Haiku. These are the sailor senshi; Mars, Venus, and
Jupiter."
"But how did you get here? There is no way to get into our region. Only one
other has and they wouldn't tell us how."
"There is an underwater passage into the region. It would be very hard to go
back through it, but it is quite easy to go from outside to in here. But you
need not worry. There are very few people who know about it, so you are safe
from outside threats. Now that you know something of us, could you tell me
some of your history?" No one from resistance had managed to get this far into
the region, and any planes that tried to make it over the outer wall were shot down.
An elderly man stepped forward. "I am the chief of these people. Welcome to
Rashka. In this village we are protected from the Negessences. At the end of
the darkness, many people found their way here. Life was pretty good. But
then the negessences came. What they would do would be to come every so
often and drain our energy. But, they'd leave enough energy so that we could
recover, and come back another day. Then there were two people, who
discovered the strands of magic, and how to use them. They found that the
strands were extremely dangerous and if they just fought the negessences
when they came the backlash would kill them. So, they gathered all of the
magic they could, and stood at opposite sides of the village. That is where
they released all of the built up magic and their own life energy to form
the shield. The only problem was that they turned themselves to stone
because if the magic energy from the strands of magic left the shield would
disappear. Because the power of the strands of magic is infinite the shield
always stays there. Because of that we are safe of the negessences."
Haiku thanked the man. "I have a message. 'If you crave the old times, or
something better, then meet your destiny at The Gathering. If you're cause
is true, when the sky turns green, you will find you're way to Crescent
Island."
"What will happen?"
"The messiah will come and the lives of the Creators will be cut short. Now,
off with that, you said that someone else also came here. Who was it?"
"Well, she was wearing a similar uniform as you, I think she said she said
she was from Uranus or something. She didn't really explain."
"Good. Now where is she now?"
"At the far side of the village is a temple. A temple that is our job to
guard. All we know of it is that it has the symbols of three of the outer
planets on it. She went there. She left just before you got here."
"Good. We're just in time. Could you show us where the temple is? We really
need her help."
"Certainly. Follow me." The senshi followed the man across the village, with
a whole bunch of villagers behind. "I don't really know what you can do. It
says only the princess and her court can enter. We've tried all kinds of
different things to get in without success."
"We are members of the princess' court."
The temple was fairly small. All it was was a building with double doors on
the front. On the doors were the symbols of Uranus, Pluto, and Neptune. To
the sides of the doors was writing on the walls. Suddenly the man stopped
within ten feet of the temple. "The shield ends here. I wish you luck on
whatever you are going to do."
"Thank you," Haiku said. "Now come on guys, I have a feeling that Sailor
Uranus is going to need our help." The doors of the temple opened easily for
the senshi. In front of them was a stairway that they hurried up. At the top
they came to a platform. At the other side of the room was a pedestal with
the artifact on it. Sailor Uranus was there, reaching for it. "Uranus,"
Haiku called. Sailor Uranus turned back.
"Huh? ....so you're okay. Now with this I'll be able to find Michiru after all this
time."
"But we already know where she is. She's on an island in the middle of the
ocean."
"She is? That's good. But we'll still need this to reach our full power."
Sailor Uranus reached for the medallion. As soon as she touched it, it
flashed in power and turned into the space sword, the deep sea mirror and
the garnet orb. When she touched the sword the other two talismen
disappeared. Suddenly the ground started to shake. The walls of the temple
fell out and the platform they were on started to rise. It rose high, high
into the sky. When it stopped, people were just tiny specks below. Then from
the hole where the temple was, a dragon emerged. It was a tan colour. "What
is that?!"
"It's a chaos dragon." The dragon was taking its time to fly up to where
they were. Suddenly a nega-essence flew up to them.
"Not another one of these nuisances," Sailor Uranus muttered. "Uranus Meteor
Comets!" Sailor Uranus moved forward and brought her hands up into the air.
A ball of energy formed in them. Then she brought her hands down and threw
the ball of energy at the nega-essence. As she brought her arms down she
finished saying 'comets' The energy knocked the nega-essence back. Then
meteors began to appear out of nowhere and pummelled the beast. In a very
short time the nega-essence was destroyed. Then the dragon flew up to them.
Sailor Uranus repeated the attack but the meteors just bounced off of the
dragon. "No! Now what?!"
"I am the Chaos Dragon of Soil! You have no chance against me!" The
dragon shocked the senshi with dark energy.
Sailor Venus ran over to Uranus. "You need to focus all of your attack into
a single beam."
"No," Haiku called. "Haruka, use the sword."
Sailor Uranus made the space sword appear. "Uranus Space Sword Meteor
Comets!" This time in her attack when she threw the ball of energy at the
dragon the space sword was in her hands. The additional power of the sword
changed the attack. The ball of energy shot up into the air, and then tons
of streaming comets showered onto the beast. It melted its scales that were
protecting it. Then when the meteors began, the chaos dragon had no chance.
All that was left was a tan coloured scale which floated down to Sailor
Uranus. "What do I do with this?" she asked.
"Just attach it to your back bow like me." She did so.
Suddenly the platform they were on started to shake. Now that the dragon
wasn't holding it in the sky it was going to fall. "Oh no! The platform's
going to fall." On the horizon something was speeding towards them at an
incredible speed. In a few seconds it was at the platform. It was Haiku's
spaceship! Only now it had side doors, which opened immediately, and
permanent wings. Haiku and Minako recognized it immediately and went through
the door. "There are seats in the back," Ami called from the cockpit.
"No there aren't," Haiku called back.
"There are now." Sailor Venus went back to where she and Haiku had been, and
sure enough, now there were seats there instead. She sat down. Haiku went up
to the cockpit. All of the other senshi piled into the back. In the cockpit,
there were still three seats. One next to the controls and two just behind.
Ami sat in the front seat and Prof. Rinkvle was in one of the ones back a
little. After Haiku sat down, he reached out and shook her hand. "Hi. I'm
Prof. Rinkvle. You have a fine ship here."
"Yeah, okay. Ami, everyone's in. Let's get out of here. You have great
timing."
"Alright, here we go." Just as the platform fell, the ship took off. A few shots came
streaming out of the Command Point but Ami was able to dodge them easily.
"I think we have some explaining to do. It's good to have you back Ami."
"Professor Rinkvle, would you take the controls please?" Ami asked, "Just
hover for a while away from any Command Points."
Ami and Haiku went back to where the other senshi were. Now they had all
transformed out of their fukus. Haruka spoke up. "So you actually met
Michiru? She's okay?"
"Yeah, but she thinks you're dead." Haiku answered.
"Exactly how long ago was that?" asked Minako.
"Why? ...I don't know, let's see, ....I'd say, three weeks on the dot. Ami?"
"Yeah that'd be right. Why do you want to know Minako?"
"In how much time did Michiru say she was getting married?"
" Three weeks," Haiku answered. For a second no one said anything.
Then, "Ami, set a course for Dohilne Island. I guess Haruka, that our
introductions are going to have to wait." Ami and Haiku returned to the
cockpit and their ship sped off towards Dohilne. Would they be in time?