The Mystical Warriors, Part 11

***The Power of THe Cosmos Revived***

The Mystical Warriors sat in the family room on the third story of their house. But it

wasn't a normal afternoon. . .

"Why do we have to wait? The longer we wait, the more Queen Beryl can do to us!" Serena

exclaimed. She was tired of being prey to Beryl's attacks; she wanted to get Beryl and stop

the fighting.

"Yeah," Lita said, "I say we charge in there and surprise-attack them!"

"That's what I say," Alex said.

"We can't just barge into the Negaverse without a plan! What happens if we open a portal to

the Negaverse and we can't get ourselves back out again? What do we do then?" Raye asked.

"Raye's right, we need some kind of a plan before we go into the Negaverse," Ami agreed. On

cue, everybody started yelling and nobody could distinguish on person's words for another.

"QUIET!" Celia yelled. Everybody shut up immediately and looked at Celia, guilty looks on

all of their faces. Celia glared down at them, rising into a standing position. "I can't

believe how immaturely you are going about this. I expected so much more of you. Now

listen, we'll go about this calmly and collectively." Turning to Ami, she said, "Ami, where

did you say the portal to the Negaverse was?"

"It was, um, at the north end of the lake that's about a mile away from here."

"Thank you, Ami. Now, I propose is we go to the portal tomorrow when it opens. . . it does

open tomorrow, right Ami?"

"Yes," she answered curtly.

"Right, we go to the portal tomorrow and enter the Negaverse. You're lucky that Ami can

sense where a portal is and when it'll open, otherwise, I wouldn't be suggesting that we do

it this way. We'll go in, fight Beryl and if we don't win, then we hightail it out of

there, regroup and try again later and if we win, then we come home and celebrate, right?"

The rest of them nodded and Celia gave them a curt nod.

"Good. I'm going to my room. I am not to be disturbed and I will see you tomorrow." The

others dissipated. Raye went to go meditate, Serena went to sleep, Lita went to start on

dinner, with Mina's help, Ami went to read, and Alex, Michelle, and Heather went to watch

T.V., all of them trying not to think about entering the Negaverse the next day.

***

Despite all their nervousness, the Mystical Warriors slept relatively well that night. They

all awoke at 7:00 the next morning and began to prepare for the journey into the Negaverse

by eating breakfast. "Serena, slow down! You'll choke on your food and then we'll be with

out a leader," Raye yelled at Serena.

"I can't help it. Part of me knows that this might be my last meal, so my body wants to eat

as much as possible. It's uncontrollable." Serena gobbled down another mouthful of

pancakes. "Mmm, Lita the guy you marry better like food."

"Why is that Serena?"

"Because he won't be able to get enough of your cooking." All of them laughed, but the

laughs were forced, not whole-hearted. After breakfast, they all transformed into their

sub-armor and went outside to prepare for battle.

First, they meditated for an hour and tried to clear their minds of all negative thoughts.

Then, they spent a few hours training, warming up their bodies, and practicing fighting. By

the time that they had everything ready to go, it was almost time for the portal to open.

Transforming into their armor, they ran to the place where the portal was supposed to open.

"How much more time until it opens, Ami?" Serena asked.

"About 5 more minutes." They all waited in anxious silence for the portal to open.

"I don't think the portal's going . . ." Serena started saying, half hoping that the portal

wouldn't open up at all, when a harsh wind blew through the trees. In front of them, a

small cyclone formed and a small black dot appeared. The black dot kept getting bigger

until it was about portal that was about 7 feet tall. All of the Mystical Warriors felt a

certain amount of fear and anxiety, but none of them moved. "So, uh, who's ready to go?"

Serena asked.

"I'm as ready as I'll ever be," Lita said.

"If I'm not ready now, I won't be in a few minutes," Ami said. The others all agreed.

Serena gulped and took a few steps forward. "I'm the leader, so I should be the first one

to go through, right? Okay." She edged forward, staff in hand, toward the portal. The

closer she got, the more courageous she got. She noticed that her crystal was glowing and

she could feel the power of the crystal wash through her body, almost as if it was feeding

her strength.

She stopped an arm's length distance from the portal and tentatively, reached out to touch

the black hole in front of her. When her fingertips disappeared into the black hole, she

quickly pulled them out in fear. She didn't like the idea of disappearing inside that

thing, but she knew she had to. Building up a little more courage, she slowly walked into

the portal. As she was passing through the portal, she felt like the darkness was pushing

all the air out of her lungs.

When she finally made it through the portal, she drew in a deep breath and gasped at the

dismal scene in front of her. The sky above her was black with purple-ish clouds swirling

around the sky. Lightning lit up the sky and showed Serena a tall castle atop of a cliff

that overlooked an ocean filled with dark water. Behind her, she heard the sounds of

surprise and dismay of the Warriors first look of the land they were in right now. "So this

is the Negaverse," Serena said, " I don't believe I've ever seen an uglier place. Ok, now

we have to start towards that tower. Do you see it there?" She got a few scattered yes's.

"Good, because I have a feeling that that's where Queen Beryl is. So, let's get started."

Serena started to walk towards the tower and hurriedly, the others followed her.

***

"Queen Beryl." Queen Beryl looked down to see her head advisor kneeling before her.

"Yes, what is it?"

"The Mystical Warriors have entered the Negaverse." She smiled at the news. "Excellent.

Prepare the torture chambers. We have guests."

"Yes, my Queen."

***

"Kind of boring isn't it?" Raye asked as they walked along. Suddenly, Serena stopped. "I

wouldn't say that if I were you, Raye," Serena said.

"Why?"

"Look ahead." The rest of them looked ahead and saw an army of youma coming after them.

Serena assumed the fighting position. "Ok, guys. Let's kick some Negaverse butt!"

She charged forward towards the enemy. A youma holding a sword swung it at her, but Serena

blocked it with her staff. Kicking the sword out of his hands, she picked it up and sliced

him in two. "One down, a thousand to go." The Mystical Warriors fought long and hard, but

eventually, Serena had enough physical fighting. "Ok you baddies, let's see how you like

the power of my crystal! MOONLIGHT VANQUISH!" A bolt of light in the shape of a crescent

moon came out of her crystal and cut through a quarter of the youmas attacking the Warriors.



The others followed suit, using their attacks to kill youmas. Just when they thought they'd

won, more youmas appeared from over the horizon. Within minutes, the youmas were attacking

them again. Serena had had enough. She could feel her anger boiling inside of her, giving

her power, more power than her armor could handle. But, she had a feeling that things would

be ok. "This is it! I call upon the Armor of the Cosmos! Armor of the Cosmos, TO ARMS!"

Suddenly, the others screamed out in pain as their powers fled them and poured into Serena's

crystal, their power represented by the color of light flooding into the crystal. The

crystal surrounded Serena in a bright light and she screamed out in pain.

When the light faded, she was standing there in the Armor of the Cosmos. The white on her

armor was now gold and her symbol was a 9-point star, a different color of someone's armor

at each point. On her upper arms were extended shoulder plates that were connected to her

armor, but not touching her and connected to her back were white, metallic wings that only

added to the effect of the Armor of Cosmos.

Everyone around them could feel the power radiating from Serena as she dug her staff into

the ground and extracted the crystal from its place in the staff. With the crystal floating

between her hands, she lifted her hands above her head. Light started to gather into the

crystal and then she said, "SUPERNOVA STRIKE!" and the light inside the crystal exploded,

killing everything evil within a mile radius.

When the aftershock of the attack died down, the armor of the Cosmos faded, leaving Serena

in her Moonlight armor and the powers of the other Warriors fled back to them. Serena

collapsed down onto her knees and hands, breathing heavily. Her staff, which lay beside

her, had the crystal back in it. The others stood up and went over to Serena. "Serena, are

you ok?" Mina asked, reaching her first.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I just need to catch my breath for a moment." A few seconds later, she

stood up and picked up her staff and declared, "Let's keep going. I don't see any more

youma. I think I killed them all."

"That was amazing Serena," Raye said, walking up to Serena, "I have never seen so much power

come from one person."

"Thanks Raye. So it's called the Armor of the Cosmos. I like it." Serena shook her head;

now was not the time to be chatting. "But enough talk, we have to get going. We're close

to Beryl. I can feel her close. We can't stop now that we're this close." Serena started

to walk again and wearily, the others followed.

***

"That's right. Come to me. I'll make sure you never get out of here alive. . . " Queen Beryl laughed softly as she cradled a large black crystal in her hands. "Oh yes. With the

power of this crystal, I'll be able to defeat you once and for all."