Author's Note:
This is set eight years after 'Crystal Hearts – When The War Ends' You really need to read the first one for this since there are a lot of references to it. Chibiusa is betrothed to Helios and has been for the past seven years.
My email address is Guardian4@atlantic.net. If you want to email me about my story, please put fanfiction in the subject line. Sailor Moon was made by Naoko Tacheuchi, I don't own it.
Crystal Souls
Heartbeat Of The Earth Chapter 2: Midnight Storm
Endymion woke gasping. Beside him, Serenity tossed and turned. He touched her cheek and it was cold, but she stopped moving at the feel of his skin against hers. She didn't awake.
He slid from the bed and frowned. The Earth was angry, very angry. Glancing at his sleeping queen, he left the room and went down the hall. He knocked once on each of the Kings' doors and without seeing the results of his actions, left. Down three more corridors and he stood by a lone door. It was unmarked by anything save an image of the Golden Crystal etched at the top of the doorframe.
Behind him, he felt the Shitennou approach him. He didn't turn around, simply walked into the room. One of his friends closed the door behind the last of them. Suddenly he was dressed in his pale lavender suit and the sign of his kingship in his hand, his staff that held his crystal.
Endymion looked behind him. His Kings were dressed their silver armor with their customary capes and distinctive chains that held them. Their eyes were serious and clouded with worry.
Turning back to the front, he studied the small altar in front of him. Helios would stay in Elysian until he married Chibiusa and then he would hand his title of priest to another and take the role of king.
Now he needed his council. "Helios, I must speak with the you."
A golden flame appeared and formed into a young man. He had white hair and a jewel on his forehead. He wore a white robes decorated with small jewels. When he looked at Endymion, his eyes shined a golden color.
"I know why you have come, King. I have felt it as well. So has the Queen."
"What is it?"
Helios licked his lips nervously and glanced behind the tall man. The four Shitennou lined behind him were an imposing visage. He looked back at the King. "I only know what I feel, not what it is. I have prayed often to know, but the only answer I get is this: An old foe that even the Earth itself hates has come. It is rebelling for some unknown reason to me."
Endymion sighed and suddenly looked so weary that it saddened the other men there. He abruptly smiled at Helios and the latter blinked in surprise. "Chibiusa misses you."
Helios blushed bright red, but found a smile on his lips anyway. "Tell her that I miss her as well, greatly, Your Majesty."
"I will. Go back to your sleep, I'm sorry to have disturbed you this late at night."
Helios shook his head, indicating it was nothing, and disappeared back to Elysian. Endymion turned to his friends. "I'm sorry to get you all up for nothing."
"This was not nothing," said Kunzite grimly. "Just because you don't know what has caused this anger in the Earth does not mean it is nothing."
"I think it's time to go back to bed," said Jadeite tiredly, not bothering to stifle his large yawn.
The others grinned at him and left the room, closing the door and putting their fears from their minds with a desperateness that they had no idea how to dispel.
Minako walked into the kitchen, stretching. The first thing she noticed was Endymion sitting at the table with a cup of coffee and Makoto standing near the stove and watching a frying pan like a sorcerer watching a cauldron.
A light tap on her shoulder made her whirl around in mild startlement. Ami gave her a pleasant smile. Breathing sped up, Minako smiled back and sat down. She frowned suddenly and turned to her king.
"Endymion, where is Serenity? This is the Sunday breakfast and in all the years that it has been started, she has never been late to it even when the Kings first appeared."
Endymion frowned ever so slightly as well. "She said she wanted to sleep in just a few moments more."
Though this was not unusual for their queen, it was unusual and unsettling on a Sunday, since Makoto was cooking and she never got a chance to cook except on Sunday's.
Minako opened her mouth to speak when a scream wrenched its way through the silent palace.
"SERENITY!"It didn't take but a moment to recognize Rei's terrified shriek. They bolted from the kitchen and back to the royals' bedroom. Rei was there a moment before the rest. The Inners quickly transformed while Endymion rushed in. However, Mercury, Jupiter, and Venus began to feel a bit embarrassed when they saw nothing wrong.
Only Mars and Endymion remained white as sheets. Serenity rubbed her eyes and stared at them sleepily. It took one look at her in the daylight as Mercury pulled back the curtains over the windows to dispel the three Senshi's embarrassment. There was cause for alarm.
Serenity's cheeks were gaunt and pale and her eyes had lost their luster, dark blue color. She seemed unable to keep her eyes open for more than a few moments at best and her nightgown hung down on her body limply.
Endymion cradled his love in his arms gently and she leaned against his chest. "What's wrong, minna?" she asked, her voice terribly weak.
Mercury had whipped her computer out the moment she saw Serenity's condition and was crunching numbers as fast as her fingers could type them, but she kept coming up with everything negative. There was simply nothing wrong with her that her instruments could tell.
When she repeated this to the Senshi, Mars violently shook her head. "No, it's impossible that there is nothing wrong with her! I know it; I can feel it."
"Where is Luna and Artemis?" exclaimed Venus angrily.
The door burst open behind them and slammed shut. Luna and Artemis stood there, breathing heavily and very angry.
"Sorry we're late," said Artemis tightly. "We had to get through the milling crowds of everyone in the palace that was awakened on a Sunday morning by someone screaming the queen's name as if someone was killing her."
"It is that serious!" exclaimed Mars hotly. "She is dying!"
"Impossible!" everyone else yelled.
"My computer shows nothing!" repeated Mercury.
"She can't be dying, she hasn't been sick even for the last 20 years," denied Jupiter.
"How can she be suddenly dying?" demanded Venus.
"I tell you, she is DYING!" screamed Mars again. "The fire told me! It woke me from my sleep at 3:00 in the morning and I sat there until 7:00 a.m.! It told me she was dying! Why would I make up something this serious?!"
The Shitennou closed the doors behind them slowly after they entered, showing that there was no one in the hall anymore. "We heard what you said. Endymion, do you remember last night? This could be the connection you were looking for."
"What happened last night?" asked Venus sharply.
"I was awakened by the Earth last night," said Endymion quietly. "It's very angry. I went down to speak with Helios and he said as much to me, also adding that the only reason he can see for this to happen is that a foe that even the Earth itself hates is on the planet and it is rebelling. Though why it has chosen to attack the queen, I don't know."
"How do you know it was a direct attack on her?" questioned Jupiter.
He looked up at her. "I can feel the Earth's malice toward her."
"But why now?" asked Mercury, looking out the window at the sky. "She's lived on this planet for how long now? Why would it suddenly attack her now?"
Endymion shook his head. He had no answers for them.
"Let's give it a few days; maybe she'll get better," suggested Jupiter, though in her heart she didn't really believe it and neither did anybody else there. But they did as she said, if only to delude themselves a bit more.
As each day came and went, it became harder and harder for the queen to awake every time. Every day, she would get paler, gaunter. She often had to be helped from the bed in order to stand.
When the fifth day came of this trial, Luna knew if it kept up, Serenity would waste away quicker. She was by the queen's bed when she spoke for the first time in three hours. She hadn't even gotten out at all that day.
"Luna, get me Chibiusa. I want to see my daughter before I die."
"Your Majesty, you aren't—"
"Let's not kid ourselves, Luna. I'm dying, but I want to see my daughter before I go."
"Yes, Usagi-chan," she whispered.
Serenity's eyes filled with tears at the name that hadn't been used to her for many years dripped from Luna's mouth. She nodded, before falling asleep again with a grateful smile.
Luna cried on the queen's chest for a few quiet moments. She had always been so close to her, almost like a daughter when she had been younger and Sailor Moon. It was tearing her apart to see her, always so young in her eyes die like this with no cause behind it. Endymion had seen Helios everyday, yet neither had no answers even now.
A hand was laid on her shoulder and she looked up. Artemis pulled his wife into his arms and led her from the room. "We should tell the other Senshi. One of them needs to get Chibiusa and someone needs to tell the Outer Senshi."
"I'll tell them," said the voice of Jadeite.
He looked and found the Shitennou and Inner Senshi watching them. Jupiter stepped forward, cracking her knuckles. "I'll get Chibiusa and if that principal gives me any grief this time, I will electrocute him. I am not in the mood to play nice or control my temper."
Mercury nodded. "Putting a little fear in him will get things moving faster."
Everyone stared at the Soldier of Water. Normally one did not hear such statements from a relatively mild-mannered woman. Attempting to disregard the vicious statement and the look in Mercury's eyes, Artemis nodded.
When Jadeite entered the communications room, he took a deep breath. At least he wasn't telling them in person. It would be dangerous to his health anyway, telling Uranus that her queen was dying. He pitied the man who was doing this when she got her hands on him.
Saturn opened her communicator when it began to bleep on the emergency code. She left off watching a suspicious character in a park in New Zealand and clicked it on. Jadeite's distraught face appeared before her.
"Yes?"
"Saturn, you are needed at the palace immediately. The queen…" He hesitated. "is dying."
"Dying?" she gasped. "That can't be! From what?"
"We have no idea. Mercury's computer shows nothing at all that's wrong with her at all. Five days ago, on Sunday, Rei screams her name and says she's dying. Ever since then, she gets weaker, paler, thinner, and it becomes harder and harder for her to awaken, let alone get out of her bed."
"I'll be right there!"
Switching off her communicator, she analyzed the fastest way of getting to the palace. She couldn't teleport since it was only she, but she could run and run she would. When she got to one of Haruka's planes, she would fly that the rest of the way. In this desperate situation, the racing star wouldn't care.
Saturn jumped out of the tree and began to run.
Setsuna walked away from the children with difficulty. She'd always had a weakness for them. Her smile disappeared as her communicator beeped. When Jadeite informed her of the situation, her good mood had altogether vanished completely. She ducked behind a low wall shrouded with shadows and pulled out her henshin stick as she asked, "Have you contacted Uranus and Neptune yet? They're in California at the moment."
"No, there're my last. Jadeite out."
"Pluto Crystal Power, Make-up!"
The power filled her body and soon she was the Senshi of Time. Waving her staff in front of her, a time portal opened and led the way to the Crystal Palace.
Strictly speaking, she wasn't supposed to use the portals unless going to or from the time gate, but she didn't care at this most crucial moment. Serenity meant more to her than rules.
As she stepped through, her thoughts were also of Chibiusa, practically trapped in that boarding school in England and had no way of knowing what was going on within her own family.
Haruka and Michiru sipped at their tea in the quiet restaurant. They were given a wide berth by the other customers, which suited them just fine. They had had a long day of patrolling and now all they wanted to do was just unwind. Soft saxophone music played in the background, soothing nerves.
Any nerves that might have been soothed in the two, however, were no longer that way when Haruka's communicator beeped insistently. The waiters and customers stared at them for a moment, but when they thought they analyzed it as a beeper, they turned their attention away again.
Jadeite's nervous face appeared. "I'll make this short and brief with no sugar coating. You both are recalled back to the palace due to Neo Queen Serenity's decline into death."
"WHAT?!" Haruka and Michiru stood up abruptly, almost knocking the table over onto the floor and spilling their tea. Everyone stared again, but the women, after throwing down the money owed for the drinks, ran out the door.
"Uranus Crystal Power—"
"Neptune Crystal Power—"
"Make-UP!" they chanted in unison.
Uranus and Neptune jumped into Haruka's yellow sports car and drove high over the speed limit to the nearest flight pad where their helicopter always waited for emergencies such as this.
Uranus's hands gripped the steering wheel hard, her eyes narrowed into slits. When she found out what was going on, someone was going to pay for it. Someone was going to pay for it dearly.
The engine revved and flew down the road in a yellow blur.
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