Dream
of Reality
Chapter Seven
by Makura Koneko
Seraphina was suffocating in darkness, in evil, in the putrid stink of malice. She coughed, hacked, choked and gagged, the blackness clogging her throat and nostrils and ears, wiggling into the microscopic crevices between skin cells.
Which was odd, seeing as she didn't have a body to play host to those skin cells. She tried swimming, but there was no air or water to push against, and the darkness only slipped away from her feet and arms only to enclose again once she had stilled for a rest.
And so, she decided, she couldn't rest. She had to keep going! And so she swam and swam, gaining little purchase in a direction she wasn't even sure she wanted to go. But anything was better than nothing. She had to keep moving, keep thinking, lest the darkness wiggle its way around her heart and mind, turning her into a puppet dangled by the blackest of strings and a blacker puppetmaster.
And that was when she felt it- the faintest brushes against her mind, and in its foulness it was beyond mortal comprehension.
And so she screamed, and thought of how she would fail to save this girl whom she had felt such a kinship with…something she would never get to explore…
"Elizabeth!" She cried, and then all was darkness.
Elizabeth didn't know where she was, but she did know that wherever she was, she was safe. She was in some place golden and warm, and the shadows couldn't pass the shimmering golden wall that was off to her right. To her left, a far ways away, there was another wall, a solid ring all around her. She tried not to listen to the whispers of the darkness that surrounded her, pressing her hands over her ears.
Mina…
Elizabeth gasped. That voice! So familiar! It was laced with…so many things…so many emotions that Elizabeth herself had been feeling for so long…loneliness…despair… Mere echoes of happiness.
Mina, what are you doing here…?
She found herself looking around for the voice. Somehow, she knew, the owner was a prisoner of this darkness just as she was. This darkness that had been hiding inside her, for who knew how long? Maybe, together with whoever was trapped along with her, they could force this darkness from Elizabeth's heart…maybe then she would be free of her curse…
"Mina?"
Elizabeth turned, telling herself she was responding to the sound of another voice, not the name.
She came face to face with a young girl, no more than fourteen, with chin length black hair so straight and silky it looked like, if it wanted to, it could float, framing a pixie face with large amethyst eyes over pale pink lips, all set into an alabaster white face.
"Wh-who are you?" Elizabeth breathed, fighting the screaming sensation to run and hug the girl and never let go.
The girl's eyes widened, then narrowed.
"How old are you?" The girl demanded, and Elizabeth's attention momentarily flicked to where the girl had adjusted her grip on a tall, six foot polished ebony staff toped with an eighteen inch long, wickedly sharp blade curving over a smaller duplicate. Although she'd never seen such a device before, its name wafted to the surface of Elizabeth's mind… 'The Silence Glaive…'
Elizabeth shivered, wrapping her arms around herself and backing away even as the girl repeated her question, "How old are you, Mina?"
"My name's not Mina," Elizabeth responded, with much more control in her voice than she felt.
"What is it then?" The girl's voice was soft, soft as silence… Elizabeth shook that thought away.
"Elizabeth," she answered. "And I am seventeen."
The girl frowned. "Well that explains it…" She looked at Elizabeth again. "Then how are you here? It's too soon for you to be able to be here."
"I don't know!" Elizabeth cried. Her eyes met those of the younger black haired girl, and she froze. Something in those eyes called her, 'liar!' But she wasn't lying! But she didn't know! Did she? Elizabeth paused…
"I was running…" she whispered. "Running from that…that darkness… I thought it was my curse, finally deciding to kill me another way besides fire…but…it's too dark… I ran into myself. To hide."
'How weird does that sound?' she thought sarcastically. But then she looked around.
"This…this is…this is my heart, isn't it? I'm hiding inside my own soul."
The black haired girl nodded. Elizabeth looked at her, then narrowed her eyes, opening her mouth to ask-
A scream….
"Elizabeth!"
Another voice! And this, too, was not coming from the malicious whispers of the darkness that lingered just outside the warm golden barrier that was the edges of her heart and soul.
"Who is that?" The black haired girl asked, an edge to her voice. Elizabeth opened her mouth to speak, but a scream that wasn't carried on air, but vibrated through Elizabeth's very heart, cut her off, and she gasped.
"Sera!" She cried, and without another thought, ran to the golden barrier and dived back outside, intent on saving the girl that she felt more compassion for than she thought was explainable, considering how before that day they'd been mere acquaintances.
The black haired girl waited only a split second before sighing and plunging after her.
Darius could only sit and watch and wait. The three forms on the bed were frozen, seemingly both physically and in time. Despite the fact that Elizabeth and Seraphina had been staring unblinkingly into one another's eyes for the past hour, those eyes remained moist and bright.
As for the girl Patience, Darius didn't know what to think. She just lay there, an impenetrable heat surrounding her, a burst of flame occasionally licking at her hair and skin. Her clothes were gone- but yet she wasn't naked. Somehow. It was as if her skin had grown an extra layer of shimmering flaming red and gold iridescence. She seemed to almost be waiting for something, as if she were caught up in some sort of metamorphosis of the most unnatural sort.
It was when this occurred to him that he felt it- something tugging at him, in a somehow agonizingly joyful way. He frowned, liking- no, loving the sensation, but hating how alien it was, the fact that he didn't know what caused it. Still frowning, he tried to use every ounce of every skill he possessed as a hunter to trace it back…
And that was how he found himself turning towards the window just as an angel slipped into his world.
Serenity smiled.
It was all she could do- emotions were beyond her, so great they were. She had no choice but to place her joy and erophia and laughing, crying, sobbing ecstasy at seeing him beneath her current of thought, else she loose herself in her emotions…then all would be lost.
And so all she did was smile.
Then she looked to the bed, and her breath caught.
Rei!
Mina!
And…?
As Serenity approached, she brushed a strand of gently curling, waist length blue-black hair away from the pale face of the third woman, and her eyes widened even further.
"Nehelania…" she breathed. She wondered if, in the real world, the Queen of the Dead Moon ever went…sour. Wondered if Chaos had ever tempted her with promises of eternal beauty. Had she grown up alone, like she said she had, too proud to ask for a bedtime story, or had she given in? Pleaded to be allowed to be a child? Had she had her own Senshi? Her own guard? As a ruler of a moon kingdom, she was entitled to such if she wished.
"You know them?"
Serenity turned, thinking his voice was the same as ever. She smiled at him.
"So do you," she told him. The man raised an eyebrow slightly.
"Aye, I know Elizabeth as a sister," he motioned to the pale blonde girl on the bed. "And Seraphina I know by sight. Patience introduced herself to me just a bare half hour ago."
"Elizabeth, Seraphina, and Patience," Serenity murmured, sitting on what little space was available on the bed. Her lips twitched and she giggled. "Patience for my fire warrior, eh? How Rei would laugh…" she grinned. "How she will laugh."
And so she bent over the raven haired woman, ignoring the heat slipping off her flesh like rolls of lava, and kissed her forehead at the same time her hand pressed something to her heart.
At once Patience was released from whatever spell had bound her when she'd looked at Elizabeth earlier, and a shuddering gasp tore her throat and lungs. The sense that she had been waiting for something left Darius, as suddenly a brilliant light filled the room, and the heat was raised to near unbearable. There was a cry somewhere between ecstasy and pain, and then laughter…laughter…
Darius looked, and saw a sight he thought only for the most delirious of dreamers. There stood his angel, and the woman Patience, embracing, tears of joy streaming down their faces. But Patience…
How oddly she was clad, and yet it seemed so right. A skirt made of the deepest flaming blood red, the hem jagged as fire and seemingly alive as the light glanced off the fabric with a golden sheen. Her sleeves, too, were cut to resemble fire, and fluttered in an invisible wind. Her bodice was white, as white as snow, and the deep v-neckline plunged to meet a fire red gem set in an ornate wrought gold setting.
Wings of fire stretched from her back, creating the heat that made the room so warm.
Just as he thought this, the wings faded, and Patience knelt, taking the angelic woman's hand in hers, tears streaming down her face as she pressed that snowy hand to her cheek.
Words were exchanged, murmured and filled with devotion and love and friendship, so much so that Darius felt tears at his eyes.
But then the silver haired woman, too, fell to her knees and embraced Patience once more, murmuring something that sound somewhere between a name and endearment. Darius could only pick up one word; 'Mars.'
Forcing himself to speak, Darius said softly, "Can you help the others as well, lady?"
The women looked at him, and pulled out of their embrace and up to their feet. As the silver woman moved to the bed again, the woman called Mars stepped back to stand beside him.
"It does my heart good to see you well again," Darius murmured. 'Mars' flashed him a brilliant smile that belied the pinched, stiff woman from earlier.
"Same here," she said. Then, more softly. "It's good to see you again, Mamoru."
"Darius," he corrected, slightly annoyed. Had she forgotten his name so quickly? There was that smile again, this time lilted with the tiniest bit of mischief as she said nothing in reply.
"What is she doing?" Darius asked a moment later, seeing Serenity run her hands lightly over Elizabeth's form, humming softly to herself.
Mars examined her liege's moves for a moment, then she smiled slightly.
"Clever, my princess," she murmured. She flicked a glance at Darius, then explained. "Elizabeth is caught up in a tangled darkness inside her. Apparently, from what I can see with my Sight, some evil tried to take hold of her, today, but got tangled up in her curse." She frowned then. "But there must be a third evil that got involved, else those two evils, the alien one and the curse, would have canceled each other out and all would be fine. That third darkness threw that off. It is an odd darkness, too… Not evil, just…dark."
Somehow, Darius understood, and nodded. "But that still does not explain what 'your princess' is doing."
"Like me, your…Elizabeth was scheduled to receive some…gifts upon her eighteenth. She is progressing Elizabeth's aging so that she will reach eighteen in mere moments, rather than a few months."
"And these gifts will allow her to free herself of these entangled evils within her?"
"It should. If not, we're here to help," her confidence was so assured that Darius accepted her words without question. Normally such a thing would have bothered him deeply, that he should do something like that so easily. But an odd sort of trust existed between them, a link, different from that he seemed to share with the silver goddess, but just as strong, whether he would accept it or not.
And so, despite the panther prowling inside him, wanting to do something, he simply stood, feet spread and hands clasped behind him, watching and waiting.
Serenity was weaving. Whatever it looked like she was doing, whatever the name, whatever she said, she was weaving. As she hummed, as her voice carried, as her hands moved and her head tilted, she was weaving. Weaving the future.
She smiled. Now, her body was aged just right…now all she had to do, was activate the soul of the Senshi within, provide the seed of power that Serenity had kept all those years, and her warrior of love would do the rest.
And so when at last the final thread was tucked into place, like a little girl reaching for a floating lily in the surface of a pond, she reached her hand down into the water…the waters of Mina's soul…
And she fell, tumbled, head over heals, falling and spiraling and tumbling deeper and deeper into the airless depths.
It was dark, Serenity noted. Far too dark. There were things here she recognized, things that made her weep because she had been to believe that they hadn't been real…such a relief it had been, to think it had all been a dream...
But now, somehow, here inside Mina, it was real…they were real. All rolled up into one rolling, boiling mass of hate and malice and chaos, they were real, every single one of them. And this was but a taste, a single fingertip of the whole beast. It was a parting gift, she realized. A farewell present from her captor, tormentor, destroyer of all she loved.
Sauron had left her a gift, for the time when she awoke and escaped him. Left her something to remember him by for when he was gone.
So had he known?
Perhaps he had, all along, known that he would never make it.
And so he had left his calling card.
A beast constructed of every fear, every self-imagined villain, every monster Serenity had dreamed up. Here was Beryl, there was Galaxia, and again here was the evil Prince Endymion, all laughing at her. Giggling with malice was Black Lady, and dancing on darkened starlight was a mirror of herself, all blackness and cruelty.
They were laughing, still. Laughing laughing laughing because she had believed them gone, believed herself save from their wickedness.
But no.
They were real, now. Sauron had watched her dreams, and every time she created a new monster in her mind, he created it in the flesh. And they, when he had been destroyed, had rolled themselves together to truly create the last beast Sauron had never had time to construct- Chaos.
And so Chaos laughed as Serenity dived, deeper and deeper into the recesses of her friends mind and soul, shooting arrows of light to pierce the darkness. They would fight, yes, but not today. Not today…no, today, she had another mission.
The light grew, and the darkness receded, until Serenity could her voices…
She dived further.
"She's gone," the small voice said plainly.
Legolas whirled to face Chibi-Usa standing in the doorway of a breathtaking crystal balcony that hadn't been there the night before. Setsuna, too, looked to the little princess, her unbound rose pink hair falling in fluffy, silky curls all around her. Garnet eyes twinkled in the starlight with something akin to wisdom, a treasure chest of knowledge and secrets far beyond someone of her extended years.
"Where is she, Small Lady?" The Plutonian warrior asked, walking to her little princess and kneeling. Chibi-Usa smile slightly.
"She went to go get them," she said simply. Her smile widened. "She missed one," she added.
"Missed what?" Legolas asked, coming to kneel beside Setsuna. Chibi-Usa snuggled up in his arms and yawned.
"Hotaru-chan," she said. "Hotaru-chan's there, too."
"How, highness?" Setsuna asked, truly puzzled. How could
Serenity have missed the presence of another?
"Because she didn't look into Venus's dreams," the young girl murmured, as if she had read her guardian's thoughts. She reached out and touched Setsuna's cheek lightly. "But I did. We need to go."
Her other hand reached up and took the hand of the elven Prince, and then they vanished, and the crystal balcony began to crumble.
Together, Elizabeth and the black haired girl with the Glaive pulled Seraphina into the stronghold of Elizabeth's heart. She coughed and choked, breathing in the love-scented air.
"Where are we?" She asked when she could speak.
"Inside me," Elizabeth said. She held up her hands, a wry look on her face as if to apologize for not having a better explanation.
"We need to get out," Seraphina said plainly. "Who knows how much time has passed in the real world? We need help- this is beyond us, Elizabeth- that is no curse, out there. That is something from the bowls of hell itself, and its wants soulblood. It won't settle for your death. It wasn't to trap our hearts in chaos for eternity."
Elizabeth shivered, but the smaller girl, the one with the pale porcelain skin, shrugged.
"What else is new?" She said. She looked at Seraphina stonily. "Under the right circumstances, in the past, it is what you, too, would have come to want for us, Nehelania."
Seraphina looked at her in shock- shock at the words and shock at the name which rung with crystal truth in her ears.
But then the girl smiled. "But I am grateful that in the real world, it never came to that. I much prefer this you to the bitch beauty queen of Serenity's dreamworld."
"Wha…?"
But the girl only smiled, and said no more.
"Since you don't remember, me, either of you, you may call me Saturn," she told them, changing the subject as a black marble chair was conjured underneath her as she sat, become solid beneath her bottom just before she would have fallen backwards.
Again, that flickering of remembrance within both Elizabeth and Sera. They looked at each other. What was going on? Saturn's smile widened in amusement.
Then, all at once, all confusion and amusement was forgotten as a bright, piercing silver light penetrated the golden walls, not destroying them, but simply so bright and powerful that it passed right through. They, all three, threw their arms over their faces, lest they be blinded.
"Venus! Saturn! Nehelania! Your liege calls to you! Will you answer our summons?" Despite the words, phrased in royal wordage, the voice was filled with laughter and sunshine.
A glow, a pinprick of warm golden light. Elizabeth gasped, her hands going to her heart. But something was between her and her chest- a…stone? A crystal? She held it to her breast, and the warmth flooded her body…
And again she was falling, twirling, dancing and singing and laughing as she faded through the fabric of time and space….
Heat coursed through her veins, and she raised her hands, letting it lick every inch if her inner flesh. Light caressed her body, enveloping her in a tingling sensation of being everywhere at once.
And then it faded…
And she remembered.
Not a trickle, not a flood, not even a door opening…like a mist that evaporated, she simply…remembered.
Venus opened her eyes, and met the silver ones of her princess hovering above her, haloed by the silver light of the moon behind her, visible out the window, sparkling with inner smiles that rivaled the one on her face. She sat up, briefly noting her new attire, and embraced the faerie woman before her. There were no words, only heart. And it was more than enough.
"You found me," she whispered, smiling. Serenity kissed her on the check, hugging her again, fiercely.
"I'll always find you. Always. We're supposed to be together, all of us. It's the way it's supposed to be. We…are one. Our threads of life are interwoven. We are incomplete without each other." She lightly touched her own temple, and Venus noticed the tendril of golden light flowing from her own heart to dance around Serenity's head. When it faded, her eyes were just a bit brighter, just a bit more…more like her mother's….more like the Usagi Venus remembered from the dreamworld, more like the little Serena before her coronation.
Just a little more…whole.
She pulled away, gently touching the face of her best friend and princess, before she looked around. She spotted Darius, and beside him Mars. Her grin widened as she leaped from the bed with uncanny grace and agility and crossed the room to embrace them both.
Darius stiffened with surprise, and Venus gave him an odd look. She raised her eyebrow at Mars, who shook her head.
"Not yet," she said. Venus nodded in understanding, winking at Darius, who frowned with bafflement. Then, with a grin, Mars nodded to behind Venus.
Venus turned, and a wide, sunny smile spread across her face as she suppressed a giggling squeal.
There sat, on the bed, Nehelania, triple-crescent moon mark on her forehead, eyes just a little more cat-like, tiny white fangs just barely visible within the surprised 'o' formed by her mouth.
And Serenity's hands over hers, smiling gently, waiting for the former DeadMoon Queen to make sense of it all.
"My kingdom…" she said slowly. "Was destroyed. He…the demon king…he was going to move to you, next… Selenity, your mother… She was always good to me. I didn't want to see happen to her what had happened to me. I ran…my Guardians –like your Senshi- did their best to protect me long enough to get me to the control room… I hoped to get a message through…" She looked up to Serenity. "Did it? Did my Guardians die in vain? They could have saved themselves, but for their choice to try and make sure your Moon survived…"
"Mother got the message," Serenity said softly. "But it was too late. She had enough time to try and send myself and my Court and will with a spark of life still in them to Earth…and right into Sauron's grasp." She shook her head. "She did not mean to, but she had only the power to send us…away, and hope it was away from him. It wasn't."
Nehelania closed her eyes in agony, and tears fell down her face as she bent forward, her face buried in Serenity's lap as she began to cry silent sobs, shoulders rising and falling with her choked breaths of grief.
Mars and Venus were silent. They knew all to well the story….they all remembered the day when they had given their lives to make sure Serenity made it safely to Beryl's stronghold… Although they had known that it wasn't real, it had been so, so hard to remember it. And it didn't help that they knew, that even if it were real, they wouldn't have acted any different.
"Of what does she speak?" Darius asked softly. He touched his temple. "I feel I should…remember, but…"
"You'll remember eventually," Venus told him reassuringly, patting him on the shoulder. She paused. "Say, how old are you?"
"Pardon?"
"How old are you? When's your birthday?" Venus elaborated as if speaking to a child. Mars shot her an annoyed look. Venus ignored her and continued to look at Darius as if interrogating him.
"Within a fortnight, last I checked," He said cautiously. "Birthdays have never held much joy for me."
"Well, this one should, cuz it's when you'll remember," Venus chirped with satisfaction. Her smile abruptly faded, however, and her gaze seemed to turn inward as she touched a temple, brow furrowed.
"Venus?" Mars asked, slight concern lilting her voice.
"Its…I think…" Venus froze, and then suddenly, out of nowhere, pain burst through her mind, and she screamed, clutching her head as she fell to her knees. At once, Serenity was at her side, Nehelania following soon after in a cloud of billowing black and gold skirts.
"Mars?" Serenity asked, her voice high with worry.
Mars grabbed Venus's head with both hands, eyes closed, a flickering symbol appearing on her brow…then it faded, and she recoiled, horror on her face.
"Oh, no…" Mars breathed. "It's Saturn and that curse! They're canceling each other out! Saturn is dying!"
"What? How? I thought Saturn had been there all this time…" Nehelania trailed off.
"Yes, but she'd been hiding herself. Now that she's on the same level as the curse, and both are oriented from darkness, they're going to level each other! Mercury would compare it to an algebra equation- a negative plus a negative equals a positive. No more negatives. No more curse, but also no more Saturn."
Just as this was said, Venus convulsed once more, and collapsed into Mars' arms.
"Then we need to get this Saturn out, correct?" Darius inquired, keeping alarm at bay by continuing to coax along the process of logical thinking.
"Duh." Mars muttered rudely. Darius flashed her an annoyed look.
"How did she end up inside Venus, anyway?" Mars asked, brow furrowed. Serenity was silent as all eyes turned to her, and then, slowly, she closed her eyes in pain.
"How could I not have thought of it…?" She whispered. She looked up again, tears and slight insanity shining in her glassy eyes. "Saturn is the second most powerful Senshi, after me. Its simple- no human body could accommodate her. She's simply too… 'big.' Too much power. If she had tried to go into a human, the same thing that happened to me with all my Senshi's souls and power within me without Sauron draining off the excess would happen to her. She'd destroy herself."
"So she went into me, who was reinforced by my sleeping powers," Venus finished. Serenity nodded miserably.
"How could I not have thought of it…?" Serenity wailed miserably, acting more and more like the old Usagi by the minute, Mars noted.
"Because, Renity, you were insane with agony- you were in no condition to thoroughly contemplate anything, let alone something as unexpected as this."
The voice belonged to none sitting around an unconscious Venus, but the smile of relief that lit Serenity's face when she abruptly whirled, stood, and ran to the lean, tall form in the doorway all at once was dazzling.
Mars' eyes narrowed at the clearly non-human male –breathtakingly gorgeous nonhuman male- who embraced the silver princess warmly. Then her eyes landed on the two beside him, and a grin lightened her face.
"Pluto-san!" She cried. The stately woman inclined her head with a wide smile, eyes sparkling, one hand gripping her staff, the other on the shoulder of the little girl at her side. Mars' eyes widened even further. "Chibi-Usa-chan!" She laughed. Chibi-Usa spared a bright smile in her direction, then bounced closer, Pluto, Serenity, and the blonde nonhuman behind her.
Nehelania opened her mouth, a question in her expression.
"Introductions later," Chibi-Usa declared firmly, kneeling beside Venus and taking her hand. She reached over and pulled a handkerchief from out of Darius's pocket, giving him a grin and a cheerful, "Hi, papa!" before using the handkerchief to wipe away the trickle of blood that had begun to seem from Venus's nostril.
Chibi-Usa kissed Venus' forehead, and two symbols, one gold and one the deepest of purples flickered into view, seemingly battling, both weakening.
"Two souls, one body, two sources of enough power to destroy a planet," The blonde man murmured after gazing at the woman with a faraway look for a moment. The faraway look vanished, then, looking to Chibi-Usa. "You know this." The little girl nodded.
"We need a host." The little girl stated firmly. "Both can't stay in there." She raised a hand as everyone opened their mouths to volunteer, save Pluto and the blonde man. "It can't be anyone here. We're all too powerful, too…soul-full."
"So we need a soul-dead body to transfer Saturn's soul to?" Mars said with a disbelieving, flat tone. Chibi-Usa nodded.
Pluto frowned, as if thinking. "What about…not a 'soul-dead' but a 'soul-suppressing' body?"
"I think I speak for us all when I say, come again?" Darius voiced, indeed, what everyone was thinking. Pluto looked to Serenity, whose eyes widened as she remembered…
"You think she would do it?"
"Perhaps."
"Then we need to find her!" Serenity rounded on the blonde man. "Can you find her? Can you? Somehow? If we enhance that elf-searching sense of yours somehow?" The blonde man regarded the little pixie that clung to his arm, and then nodded slowly.
"If indeed, we can 'enhance' it great enough then yes, I believe I could locate Adien and Alaura."
Nehelania looked sharply to the blonde man, eyes widened slightly before looking away. She picked up the handkerchief off the floor- Venus had begun to bleed again.
"Whatever you plan on doing, do it fast," Darius snapped, frowning at them, sweeping aside Venus's sweaty bangs- her breathing was becoming more and more hoarse. As he watched, he could almost see how the battle within her was shredding her mind and body…
"Pluto, can you freeze time in a bubble around Venus?" Serenity asked sharply, for an instant fully an empress-to-be, fully there, fully sane and fully in command.
"You know I cannot, highness." Pluto murmured.
"You did it once-"
"And was punished severely for it. I do not know if They will be as understanding this time around."
"Then we'll bend the rules- slow down time around her, slow as you can." Without waiting for a reply, Serenity turned to the blonde man. "Find them, Legolas, and lets home they still have the ability they had last time we met them…"
"And us?" Mars asked. Serenity looked at her.
"We'll boost Legolas's abilities."
"How?"
"Just give me what power you can, and I will handle it," Legolas informed them smoothly. He gave Serenity an amused smile. "I am glad, now, you insisted once on seeing if our powers were compatible, Renity."
Serenity smiled at him happily, and Darius was partially curious, partially annoyed at the growl that stirred inside him…
"So how do we do it?" Mars asked, moving Venus gently to Nehelania's lap as Pluto came over and kneeled beside her, eyes intense. Chibi-Usa had backed away and slipped into Darius's lap- he realized that he hadn't even noticed when he had wrapped his arms around her, letting her curl up against him.
"You remember the times you and the others gave me your powers?" Serenity asked her. "Like with Babayou and the Deathbusters? Can you do that now? Then I will transfer both yours and mine to Legolas."
Mars nodded. "I remember." She gave her princess a look. "Can you handle it, Odango?"
Serenity's widened, both at her the nickname and concern, both rare signs of open affection from her fiery friend. She nodded. "I can do it, Rei."
Mars regarded her liege for a moment, then with an almost gentle smile, she nodded, and raised her hand to press them over her heart, and closed her eyes. Within moments, she began to glow red…
And as Serenity felt the fire of Mars seep into her veins, she closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and prayed that what she had planned would work…
'Please,' she prayed. 'Let those two sisters answer our call…'
Serenity never noticed the curiously anxious look Nehelania was giving them.
To Be Continued…
Omg, I just watched the first episode of Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon (the live-action Sailor Moon TV series that was just released this week in Japan) and its soooooo cute! It's Japanese, ok, so it does have a Power-ranger-ish feel, because they edit different than us, and the fighting scenes are, well, they're…anime style, so it looks like they're dancing. And the costumes could be way better, but the wigs are great, the special effects aren't bad, and the acting is awesome!!! They did SUCH a good job casting! I especially like the girl they got to play Naru. And the music is awesome!
Some sicko but in a 'joke' regarding the Sailor Senshi's popularity with tentacle rape hentai. In the opening song, the final line is 'Sailor Senshi sora no moonlight hearts.' Which I believe translates to 'Sailor Senshi have hearts of moonlight.' But the subtitles say 'Sailor Senshi tentacle rape targets heart moonlight.'
Somebody explain that to me. . I was annoyed, to say the least.
For those of you that want to download the episode (200 mb, eek, and takes about nine hours to download, but it's subtitled!), there are a series of steps you need to follow to get the right programs and codecs and stuff. E-mail me for the steps and links and stuff. For those of you that aren't willing to spend that much time and hard drive space on it, you can get episode synopsis and screen captures at www.genvid.com. Excellent site, and the leading info source on PGSM.
Now, on to the actual topic of this file…
Woooooah… That was a long chapter, even for me! And especially for this story!
Sorry this took so long to get out. I had a serious writer's block –I intended to end the story with this chapter with some sort of illusive cliffhanger-ish ending, but then I had a burst of inspiration, not only to get over the block, but to continue the story, give it an actual plot and goal, but also to bring more LotR elements in. Because, lets face it, the only LotR stuff in here after the first two chapters is Legolas, and even then we haven't been seeing much of him.
Oh, and whose up for a Legolas/Mina pairing? That occurred to me while writing this…or what about Legolas/Rei? Or even Legolas/Nehelania? That would be fun to play with… Take your pick, people, I'm pretty open. We need some romance in here.
Anyways, hope you all enjoyed this extra long chappie- you all deserved it for waiting so long. Until next time! Ja ne!
Hope Makes the Universe Shine,
Makura Koneko