Chapter 8
Ryou stepped back in a defensive position in front of his sister and Michiko. Ai, however, was not about to be protected. She ran up boldly to the intruding, grasping the golden chain of Venus in her hands.
"What are you doing here?" she demanded. The intruder was a pale-face woman with black hair past her head. She floated in the air, most of her body covered by a long gray cloak. Her eyes were cold an sinister, sending chills through anyone who looked at them long enough. Her voice had the same effect.
"What am I doing here?" she asked, as if insulted. "I am here to capture the Asteroid Senshi. I see one of them is with you. Stand aside."
"Are you the one that captured Michiko before?" Ryou demanded. The woman took a glance over at the young princess and laughed.
"The Neptune girl? Of course not! We have no use for her. Maigo was actually ordered to exterminate her, but of course the fool didn't listen." She floated down a bit so she was almost on eye-level with her opponents, though her feet did not yet quite touch the ground. "Normally, I would have reported this, but when I realized that it was a perfect opportunity to capture another of the Asteroid senshi, I allowed it. And thus I followed and found you here."
Terror struck Michiko's heart. She had never realized she was being followed. And now her foolishness had put her friends in danger. The thoughts made Michiko want to weep, until she felt Reika's calming hand on her shoulder.
"Don't be upset, Michiko," she whispered. "She's a powerful sorceress, I'm sure she's familiar with all sorts of techniques to hide her power. There was no way you could have known you were being followed."
"I suppose, but..." Michiko began, but Reika interrupted her.
"Don't worry, we'll beat her okay?"
At this, the dark-haired woman laughed again. "Beat me?" she questioned. "You, little children of the old Sailor Senshi? Your parentage may be impressive, but that means nothing. You're weaklings, and expendable. You have one choice to save your lives and that is to step away before I lose my temper."
As the woman spoke, Ryou glanced nervously around. He wasn't quite sure he could deal with this threat, but he knew he couldn't stand by either. His heart was pounding as his mind ached with what to do. Strangely enough, though, when he glanced at his sister, she looked completely calm. She even had closed her eyes after talking to Michiko. What was she doing?
"Reika?" he whispered.
"Shh..." she said back. Then after another moment, she added quietly, "Can you feel that?"
"Feel what?" Ryou asked.
"Her power. Can you feel her power?" Ryou glanced back at their enemy. He did feel something about her, a certain aura, a special type of attack.
"I think so," he said. "She is strong is some areas, but I can feel her weaknesses as well." It was only then that he noticed that his lips were not moving and although he heard every word his sister spoke, neither were hers.
"Enough standing and staring at each other!" the woman remarked as she drew what appeared to be a small dagger from her belt. "I, Hacate, will finish you here!" She raised her hand to prepare for an attack when suddenly Reika yelled out,
"Pallas! A lightning attack! From the left!"
Sailor Pallas jerked around and sure enough, with a swing of her dagger, Hacate had left off on surge of lightning in just that direction. Luckily, Pallas had just enough time to counter it.
"Amazon Jungle Arrow!" she yelled. The two attacked collided and neutralized each other. Ai had to jumped out of the way to avoid getting caught in the blast.
"How did you...?" Hacate cursed under her breath as she pondered how on earth this small child could have foreseen her attack. But no matter. She would finish them off soon enough anyway. She lifted her hand and got ready again, but this time as she swung, it was Ryou who called her,
"Ai! Another one! In front of Pallas" Ai quickly turned and let off her attack:
"Venus Love and Beauty Shock!" The blast was not nearly as powerful as Pallas' Jungle Arrow attack, but it was still enough to protect her from danger. Now Hecate was really starting to become annoyed. The Asteroid Senshi stood her ground between the children and her opponent.
"Why are you after me?" she demanded.
"You should know that better than anyone," Hecate replied. "The four asteroid senshi are the guardians of Crystal Palace. Once we've captured you, Cystal Tokyo is open to our will."
"You think you can beat King Helios and Lady Serenity?" Pallas asked. "There's no way."
"Not on our own of course," Hacate answered. "We will have to draw on your power." Pallas' eyes widened. So that was the plan behind their attacks. It was true that if these enemies somehow had a way to harness the energy of her and her friends and combine it with their own; it would certainly be a force to be reckoned with. Of course, she herself was not going to go down so easily.
"Then we'll have to beat you first!" Ai cried out.
While the battle raged on between Pallas and her allies and Hacate, Kasami and Akio were unfortunately running in the completely opposite direction. Akio thought he sensed someone with their power close by, and his intuitions proved to be correct, as the two outer senshi ran, quite literally, right into Sailor Juno.
"Ow!" Kasami muttered, staggering back.
"Kasami! Akio!" Marie cheering, running up to them. She was still wearing the mini-visor and holding her computer out. "I knew you were out here! I got a reading from my computer, we've been trying to find you!"
Akio knelt down so Marie was a bit more on eye level.
"You found us with your computer?" he said. "That's very impressive."
"Well, Shiro had to help me a little bit," she admitted, motioning to her brother. "But once you get used to it, it's really pretty easy. It's like I just think what I want to know, and it comes up."
"Not bad for 20th century technology, even if it is from Queen Serenity," Akio said with a smile. Behind him, he heard Kasami tapping her foot impatiently. He sighed and stood up. "I'm afraid we've got some bad news," he said.
"What bad news?" Shiro asked.
"While Kasami, Michiko and I were traveling, a monster attacked us. It captured Sailor Ceres along with my sister... and then disappeared." Akio turned his face to the side. Talking about his little sister, as well as seeing Marie standing there with Shiro couldn't help but make him fearful for her. Not to mention still guilty about allowing her to be taken. Shiro seemed to sense his distress and put a understanding hand on his friend's shoulder.
"Can you tell us anything else?" he asked. "Any clue as to where it might have gone?"
Akio shook his head. "No," he said solemnly. "Although it didn't seem like Michiko was its target. It seemed more like it was after Sailor Ceres, and she just sort of... came along by accident."
"But why would anyone be after Sailor Ceres?" Marie asked. At this, Sailor Juno stepped up. Behind her Jupiter's daughter Anzino, nervously wrung her small hands together. This was supposed to be a search for their fathers; all this talk of monsters and enemies was making her frightened.
"We as the Asteroid Senshi are the main guardians of Crystal Palace," Juno explained. "It's quite possible that if someone is after Lady Serenity, they would attack us first." At the word 'attack', Anzino went from clinging to her own hands, to Juno's leg.
"Should we go back to the palace then?" Shiro asked.
"Yeah, I like that idea," said Anzino. But Juno seemed to disagree.
"We can't go back with Michiko still out there. We have to find her first." She looked down at the shivering little girl still attached to her leg. "Anzino..." she said quietly.
"I wanna go back," the girl muttered. Juno smiled.
"Yes, I know you do. But one of our friends is in trouble. We can't just leave her behind. Is that what a Sailor Senshi would do?"
Anzino looked up and wiped her eyes, trying to seem as brave as possible.
"No, I guess not," she admitted. She knew Juno was being nice to her,
and though a part of her appreciated it and wanted to cling to it, another
part told her she needed to stand for herself, to not be so scared. She
was always the quieter one in class, she never liked to talk to much to
others. There was always that fear that she would say something wrong,
that she would embarrassed, that she would mess up. She wondered if Sailor
Jupiter ever felt like this.