Part 9: Preparing for the End
-2 and a half months later, June 11th, 1999-
"Does anyone have any ideas about how to do this?" Serena asked the Mystical and Ronin Warriors as they sat there, brainstorming around the dining room table.
"We could always do it the same way we did it last time," Raye said, "We could go in there and if something happens, we get Ami to find another portal so we can get out."
"Uh-uh, the last time we did that, I got captured, remember?" Serena said.
"Well, do you have a better way to do it?" Lita asked.
"Yeah Serena, do you have any better ideas to get on how to get into the Negaverse?" Mina asked.
"Well, no," Serena said bashfully.
"What are you guys talking about?" Kento asked. The Mystical Warriors remembered that they hadn't known the Ronin Warriors when they went into the Negaverse for the first time.
Alex took in a deep breath before explaining. "Well, about two years ago, we went into the Negaverse with the intentions of killing Beryl. Serena actually ended up killing Queen Beryl, but she was captured beforehand."
"Yeah, and tortured. I don't want to go through that again, you guys," Serena said.
"What exactly was the plan?" Rowen asked.
"The plan," Ami said, "Was to find a portal to go into the Negaverse and try to kill Beryl. If anything happened, I would find a portal and get us out of there."
"And you've taught me how to find the portal," Rowen said.
"So we don't have to rely on Ami to get us out. If something happens to one of you two, then the other one will be able to find a portal to get us out," Sage said.
"But, what if something happens to both of them?" Michelle asked.
"Well, we'll have to hope that doesn't happen," Ami said, "Because it's taken me three months to teach Rowen how to find a portal. We don't have the time for me to teach someone else."
"Is this true?" Heather asked.
"Yeah," Rowen said, "And after of three months of training, I'm still not as good as Ami. I can only find a portal about half of the time."
"You've actually seen these portals?" Cye asked, a little scared at the fact that one of his best friends was near a portal to an evil netherworld.
"Yeah, but I've never gone in one of them," Rowen said.
"Well that will all change once we get a plan figured out!" Raye exclaimed. Raye then turned to Serena, her eyes narrowed in impatience, and said, "Well, little Miss Esteemed Leader, do you have a plan for going into action? You don't seem to like the original plan, so if you don't like it, you better have a good alternative." Serena cringed at Raye's tone of voice and Sage, who was sitting next to Raye, put his hand on her shoulder and said, "Raye…" in a warning tone.
Raye calmed down almost immediately and said, "I'm sorry, but I'm really edgy. We've been fighting Metallia for almost a year and I just want her dead."
"It's alright," Sage said, "But when you get like this, you have to remember what we've talked about with you and your temper, ok?"
"Right, I'll try to not put those talks to waste," Raye said, giving Sage a small smile.
"That's my girl," Sage said. Serena smiled at the two. Those two are meant to be. Why don't they see it? Serena sighed, but seconds later, felt a prickle at the base of her spine. Her smile disappeared, her teeth gritted, and her hand formed a fist, which wound up slamming down on the table. "What's wrong Serena?" Darien asked, looking at her from across the table.
"I hate to break up this little brainstorming session, but there's a hybrid attack. We should go take care of it," Serena said.
"Where is it?" Ryo asked.
"It's downtown, somewhere near Tokyo Tower. Come on, we have to go. We have some enemy butt to beat." The group of 16 warriors moved out of the dining room and walked through the front hall, exiting the house. Once outside, the group transformed into their sub-armor. "Power of the Moonlight!"
"Power of the Artic!"
"Power of the Firebird!"
"Power of Lightning!"
"Power of the Heavens!"
"Power of Time!"
"Power of the Earth!"
"Power of the Seas!"
"Power of the Gods!"
"Power of Soul!"
"Power of Spirit!"
"Armor of Wildfire!"
"Armor of Halo!"
"Armor of Hardrock!"
"Armor of Torrent!"
"Armor of Strata!" With bright flashes of light, the group of 16 appeared in their sub-armor. Breaking out into a run, with Serena in the lead, the Mystical and Ronin Warriors ran away from the house, hoping that they would get to the battle scene in time to stop any horrific damage.
***
The Mystical and Ronin Warriors arrived at the scene,
ready to do battle. The army of hybrids
was made of about 60 to 70 of them, all consolidated into a single moving
mass. Serena's face took on a grimace as
she looked at them. "I really hate
fighting them, but it's in the best interest of the world that we wipe the
floor with their asses," Serena said.
"I couldn't agree more," Celia said. Raye moved to stand next to Serena and said, "Well, let's get armored up and destroy these guys, ok?"
"Yes, let's," Serena said. "Ok guys, let's do this!" Serena yelled before saying, "I call upon the armor of the Moonlight. Armor of the Moonlight, TO ARMS!"
"I call upon the armor of the Artic. Armor of the Artic, TO ARMS!"
"I call upon the armor of the Firebird. Armor of the Firebird, TO ARMS!"
"I call upon the armor of Lightning. Armor of Lightning, TO ARMS!"
"I call upon the armor of the Heavens. Armor of the Heavens, TO ARMS!"
"I call upon the armor of Time. Armor of Time, TO ARMS!"
"I call upon the armor of the Earth. Armor of the Earth, TO ARMS!"
"I call upon the armor of the Seas. Armor of the Seas, TO ARMS!"
"I call upon the armor of the Gods. Armor of the Gods, TO ARMS!"
"I call upon the armor of Soul. Armor of Soul, TO ARMS!"
"I call upon the armor of Spirit. Armor of Spirit, TO ARMS!"
"Armor of Wildfire, DAO JIN!"
"Armor of Halo, DAO CHI!"
"Armor of Torrent, DAO SHIN!"
"Armor of Hardrock, DAO GI!"
"Armor of Strata, DAO INOCHI!" The Mystical and Ronin Warriors stood there in their armor, ready to fight. The hybrids spotted the armored warriors and, each of them letting out a battle cry as they spotted their enemy. The warriors heard another cry behind them and they whirled their heads to see a large portal opening up behind them and more hybrids pouring out of it. "Uh-oh," Ryo said as he spotted the second group of hybrids, far bigger than the first.
"I'd say we have our work cut out for us, huh?" Cye said.
"You said, not me," Ryo concluded. The group of warriors spread out, now totally surrounded by the enemy. As if their minds were working as one, the Mystical and Ronin Warriors attacked at one, charging the enemy using weapons and power, basically whatever was at their disposal. As they fought, it seemed that the number of good guys decreased. "MOONLIGHT VANQUISH!" Serena cried as she destroyed the last of the hybrids. She was exhausted, her powers totally spent. She had never fought so many hybrids and the only time she had fought so many enemies was when she and the other Mystical Warriors entered the Negaverse and Serena had used the Cosmos Armor.
She looked around the group to congratulate all of them, she noticed that there was a significant difference in the number of warriors before the fight and after the fight. "Alright, who's missing?" Serena asked. Serena did a mental head count and her eyes went wide. "You guys," she asked the group, "Where's Ami, Raye, Mina, Lita, and Mia?" The rest of the group looked around to find them, but they didn't see them anywhere. Serena began calling out names. "Raye! Where are you? You guys, answer me!" The group, in the middle of looking for their missing comrades, heard a laugh behind them. Ryo froze, his body going completely stiff, as he heard that laugh. "Wait a minute, I know that laugh. Why does it sound so familiar?"
"Maybe because you've heard it before, Ryo of Wildfire." The group all turned to see a man with jet black hair floating about 15 feet in the air in front of them. "Who are you?" Heather asked, needing to know who this evil man was. "I think the Ronin Warriors know who I am."
"We have no clue who you are, now answer her question," Rowen said. The man smiled slightly, yet the smile was definitely malicious and sneering. "Well, then I'll tell you if you can't guess. I am Talpa." The guys nearly fainted. Talpa had a human form?
"You can't be Talpa. Talpa is dead," Kento said.
"Oh, but it is me. You may have killed my body, but you didn't kill my spirit. Queen Metallia found my spirit and brought me back to life as her general, a position I served in the Silver Millennium."
Alex only sighed in disgust and impatience. "Why are you here? Shouldn't you be off with Metallia, cooking up evil plans to kill us? Because, if you're not, I'd like to kill you here and now and get it over with."
"Oh, I'm here for a purpose. I'm here to negotiate a deal."
"A deal? What kind of a deal?" Mia said. Talpa only laughed slightly.
"Well, I have something you want and you have something that I want."
"What are you talking about?" Darien demanded. With a slight wave of his hand, Talpa opened up a window into the Negaverse and the Warriors went aghast at what they saw.
In the window, they saw the figures of Raye, Ami, Mina, Lita, and Mia, all of them chained up and being tortured with a searing stream of black lighting. "No, stop it. You're going to kill them! What do you want?" Sage asked, ready to do anything to stop Raye's suffering as well as the others.
"All I want," Talpa said
with an evil grin, "Is the Silver Crystal.
And I want all of you to come to the Negaverse
to deliver it to my Queen and me personally."
"You will never get the Silver Crystal," Serena cried, "And you will not
win. I can guarantee that."
"Well then, if you will not give us the Silver Crystal, we will not give you your friends back. It's been nice doing business with you," Talpa said before he disappeared right in front of their eyes, returning to the Negaverse.
"They will not get the Silver Crystal. The only way they will be able to take it from me is over my dead body," Serena muttered.
"Well, then how are we going to get them back?" Kento said, "We might as well give them the Silver Crystal so we can get the others back." Serena went absolutely livid. She walked over to Kento and hit him. "Would you care repeating that again?" Serena said as Kento struggled to get his balance after Serena hit him, "Have you learned nothing about the Mystical Warriors and our past in the 11 months that you've been living with us? The Silver Crystal is the most powerful thing in the Universe. So powerful that it has the strength to destroy it.
"If we hand the Silver Crystal over to Queen Metallia, we'll be handing over the lives of everyone and everything in the universe. If given the absolute choice, I'd rather let them have the girls then give them Silver Crystal and I know that that's what they would want too."
"But, they're getting hurt," Cye pointed out, the image of Mina being hurt flashing through his mind.
"I know," Serena whispered, her temper having calmed down a lot in a few seconds. "And we are going to get them out."
"Well then, what are we waiting for, let's go," Ryo said.
"No, we can't," Celia said, interrupting whatever Serena was going to say.
"Hey, that's what I was going to say," Serena muttered before saying, "I agree with Celia. We can't go in. We don't have a plan and our energy is low. If we go now without being rested, we're sure to get at least hurt, if not captured and killed."
"But, we have to get them out before they die," Rowen said.
"I know, and we will. But we need to get our energy back up first. We'll go tomorrow after we've rested. That's the best we can do," Serena finished before detransforming into her sub-armor. "Well, I don't know about you, but I'm going home to sleep."
"Yeah, I could use some sleep too," Darien said, detransforming as well and moving to walk beside his girlfriend. The other Mystical Warriors followed, leaving the Ronin Warriors at the scene of the battle. The Ronin Warriors stood there, thinking about what had happened and the possibilities of never seeing the girls again without telling them how they felt.
Each of them deep in their own thoughts, they slowly began to move away from the battle scene, their hearts full of dread and regret.
*******
Hi again. I just wanted to write a couple little notes, nothing big.
To CTRNikkiM – yes, you have read this before. Before we moved to fanfiction.net, FateChica had these books on her website. But Gurlpages.com went haywire and erased it. We had always meant to keep updating onto other sites, but it took me nudging Chica to get these up here, and as you may tell, I'm mostly updating these myself. I know you probably read at least through Book 3 if you kept up with the website. Don't worry, at the rate I'm updating, you'll be reading book four really soon! And thanks so much for putting us on your favorite authors' list
And to thescientist, thank you for the compliment on the writing. Right now, this is only FateChica's writing, so I'll pass the compliment on to her. She'll be thrilled! As for Raye and Sage couplings, who knows what we devious masterminds have in for all the potential couples . . . Just you wait and see! Anyway, I'm glad someone else noticed the similarities between the two shows. I will admit, it was Chica's ideas that gave birth to these two books! (I claim part of the mastermind for the plot of book 3, soon to be coming!)
I am floating on a cloud. Three new reviews! I feel so loved! : ) Thank you all! ~DestinyBabe (and FateChica)