Red is Final. Sailor War Begins!
Rei hurried around the temple, cleaning it for the Sailor Meeting that she was hosting that evening. Even the often-aloof Outer Senshi would be attending. She straightened the cushions in their favorite meeting room around the small table then moved on to the fire-reading room.
She grabbed her broom and padded down the narrow paneled hallway. When she reached it, Rei carefully slid the door open and started her sweeping.
Setting her broom momentarily aside, the young priestess bent down and stirred the coals from the fire ritually.
Suddenly, the flames flared up into a roaring fire. Rei stumbled backwards in terror and surprise.
Framed in the fire, there was an image: a girl dressed in red and black senshi fuku was walking purposely forward with a slight smirk on her face. She had boyishly short red hair and a red bow on the front, left side of her head where a short, curving strand of hair hung down and looped back up just above her shoulder. Sailor Red Sun...The fire suddenly roared up then shrunk into just a pile of glowing coals.
Rei shuddered.
Picking up her broom, she hurriedly swept the remainder of the room and left it. The sooner she got out of there the better. After a little more dusting around the temple, she had shaken off her evil feeling. With a lighter heart, she headed out to the front porch, broom in hand.
Rei had barely began sweeping when she sensed a somehow familiar presence near by. She glanced up warily, her violet eyes darting in all directions. Sure enough, they came to rest on the figure of an average looking girl with short red hair with a bow in it and lighter red eyes who was perched lightly on the porch railing. She wore the Juuban uniform and the red bow on the front accented her slightly darker red hair.
"You," Rei murmured quietly with a dangerous edge to her voice, "What do you want?"
"What do I want?" the girl said and a grin spread across her face, "Well, Hino Rei, I don't know. I thought I just might pay a visit to my Silver Counterpart. After all, I'm the last to meet mine."
"How do you—?" Rei stammered, startled that the girl knew her name, then remembered something, "Oh, I can play that game too! You better watch out Kieno Furea! You don't know what you're up against!"
"Good to see you use your powers to a good use Rei," Furea commented sarcastically and hopped down to the porch. She still had a sneering grin on her face, "I really think you should be the one to watch out. I know plenty of what I am facing. I was alive during your last lifetime. I knew you. You don't remember a thing about me!"
Rei's mouth just hung open.
"The real reason I'm here is that I have a score to settle," Furea's grin lessened into a smirk, "I cannot forgive you or any of the Silver Moon Senshi for what you did to my princess. Prepare to be beaten!"
"Ha!" Rei said defiantly, and her transformation rod was immediately in her hand. "Mars Crystal Power, Makeup!"
Furea pulled a red crystal heart from the bow in her hair and held it into the air, "Red Sun Spectrum Power, Makeup!"
After the swirling crimson flames and red light subsided, two senshi stood before each other, ready to battle.
"You'll regret what you did, Sailor Mars," the girl yelled furiously, "Red Solar Heat Wave!"
Unlike the slightly younger senshi, Mars held her temper and dodged out of the way. "Mars Flame Sniper!" she aimed her fiery arrow and shot.
Mars' counterpart was to blinded with rage and her love for fighting, that she didn't see the attack coming. It hit her square in the chest.
She screamed in pain and grabbed at the railing she had been sitting on for support.
Sailor Red Sun's eyes reeled angrily as she pulled herself up. "DIE!" she screamed at the top of her voice and, instead of attacking, ran straight for Sailor Mars. She punched her hard in the gut and leaped past onto the lawn. "Red Flame Sniper!" she aimed her own fire arrow at Mars and shot it.
Doubled over in pain, Sailor Mars just barely managed to get out of the attack's way in time. Still, it painfully grazed her shoulder. She cursed in pain and jumped down to the lawn to face her enemy.
"Mars Flame—"
"Red Solar Heat—"
The two prepared to attack at the same time.
"Sniper!"
"Wave!"
The fire arrow and red light beam met mid-air, the latter consuming the first and continuing on, only slightly decimated. All of the energy from Sailor Red Sun's hatred and rage was contained in the attack.
Mars shrieked even before it hit her. She couldn't avoid it. Just as she thought the end was near, a familiar voice called across the lawn.
"Silence Wall!"
A shield of pulsing powerful energy surrounded Sailor Mars just in time and the red light reflected back off of it, returning its deadly wrath on its creator.
Red Sun screamed in terrible pain and nearly collapsed onto the ground. Only her pride gave her the strength to avoid doing so. Glancing around, she found herself very surrounded.
"Invited by a new era, I am Sailor Pluto, soldier of the third realm, forbidden Hades!"
"Attacking my best friend and fellow senshi is something I cannot forgive. I am the pretty suited sailor soldier, Sailor Venus. In the name of Love and Beauty, I will see to it that you are punished!"
"Invited by a new era, I am Sailor Saturn, soldier of silence and destruction!"
"Saturn! Venus! Pluto!" Sailor Mars cheered happily, "Thanks for saving me from that!"
"No problem," Sailor Saturn said in her hauntingly mature voice.
"Now, Sailor Red Sun," Venus said bitterly, "You're surrounded. And you're going to pay for hurting my friend! Venus Love and Beauty Shock!"
The golden hearts rushed at the weak and cornered senshi. She shrieked and dove to the ground.
"Mars Flame Sniper!"
"Curonos Cyclone!"
"Silence Glaive Surprise!"
Entirely helpless now, Sailor Red Sun rolled out of the way of the second attack and pushed herself up. She found an opening between Pluto and Venus and took it.
The red and black senshi tore across the grassy lawn and into the woods as fast as her legs could carry her. Without looking back, she shrieked breathlessly just before she disappeared into the forest, "You'll pay for this, Silver Senshi! Soon you'll really regret this!"
There was a long moment of silence after Sailor Red Sun left.
"I guess being early wasn't such a bad thing," Sailor Venus said brightly.
Nine girls, Rei, Setsuna, Minako, Hotaru, Usagi, Makoto, Ami, Haruka, and Michiru, sat around the small, low table in the small temple room often used for studying.
"They obviously want to kill us all," Rei argued flatly.
"That has been made apparent by the many attacks on us by the Sun Senshi," Ami said in her most precise voice.
"I won't believe that," Haruka growled and ran her hand through her short hair, "Kigai would never do something like that. She is too pure. I can feel it."
"That may be true," Setsuna commented, "As I can hardly believe the same for Itazura—"
"—Or Chou," Makoto interrupted quickly.
"But they could be good actors, or very well controlled by the others," she continued, "I think most of us have met Sailor Blue Sun, and she shows a good example of how that could happen. I can see that Itazura, for example, lives right in the moment. She is likely to act kindly to me at one moment, then the following she would turn and attack me. I believe that she holds her fellow soldiers of the Sun in very high regard."
"When Green Sun helped me destroy the youma and Blue Sun caught her, she slapped Chou," Makoto added her own story, "And Chou followed her orders obediently."
"Those two, Red and Blue Sun," Uranus said, seeing how things could work out, "Make a deadly team. Blue seems to be in charge and Red carries out her wishes almost as ruthlessly as Blue Sun. When Sailor Yellow Sun and I were fighting some youma, the two suddenly showed up and dragged her off, not after attacking me, of course. They said that we, the Silver Moon Senshi, can't be trusted, and left. I still hold to the fact that Kigai is not capable of evil, but I can see how she could be forced to attack us."
"Honestly," the small, black-haired child piped up, "I don't think that they are harmless. They sent Sailor Violet Sun to finish Minako off while she was down. Jika wanted to kill her. Orange Sun wanted to do the same."
Just then, Ami laughed slightly, "This is slightly off the subject, but both Minako and Kanami made the top two slots of the volleyball team."
Minako's eyes widened and she jumped up happily, "I made it! I made it! Yea! Whoo hoo!"
"Minako-chan," Setsuna scolded gently, "Sit down, you're still not fully recovered from Orange Sun's attack."
The blond looked embarrassed and horridly returned to her seat on the ground.
"Let's gather what we all know," Luna suggest from her perch on a pillow next to Usagi.
"I think most of their attacks revolve around their 'Silver Counterparts'," Michiru observed, "Usagi and I are the only one not to meet ours yet. Correct?"
"Well yes," Rei said, deep in thought, "But Furea said that she was the last one not to meet her counterpart. Wouldn't that mean that you guys don't have one?"
Usagi just looked confused.
"Actually," Artimis began, as he strolled into the room, "You two do have golden counterparts."
"Where have you been?" Minako accused. He had been nowhere to be found as soon as she recovered.
"Doing some research," he said coolly and hopped onto his mistress' lap then continued, "Back in the time of the Silver Millennium, there was another kingdom, called the Golden Millennium. The Sun used to be part of our kingdom, but it grew very large and started producing more than just one senshi, for whatever reason there was a whole team of them, so it broke away and became a kingdom on its own.
"The Golden Millennium was attacked the same time as the Silver Millennium. It was quickly defeated and its queen put the kingdom into a long dormancy. It seems that it has just now awakened. I have never seen the sun so active. On the sun at that time, there were seventeen senshi, the queen, and her two daughters. Each of the princesses had a group of senshi to defend them.
"The youngest daughter and heir to the titles 'Sailor Sun' and 'Queen Astra' had seven guardians, the Sun Spectrum Senshi. The older daughter had ten guardians, the Sun Color Senshi. All of the senshi here are Spectrum Senshi with the exception of Pink Sun, who is a color senshi. The Spectrum Senshi, in general, are the only ones with counterparts. Sailor Teal Sun and the royalty are the exceptions to that rule.
"Being your counterparts, they have the same paranormal powers and regular skills that you have. They can also copy your attack, as you can copy theirs after seeing it done," Artimis paused for a second and appeared to be finished, but wasn't yet, "One more thing, their orange cat, Apollo, is my twin brother."
Minako completely forgot everything he had said before, "Your brother!?"
"Yes, the picture of him suddenly jarred a memory from long ago," the white cat explained.
"Hmm," Rei pondered, "What really makes these girls dangerous is that they know so much about us in our past lives, and we know so little. They remember us from the Silver Millennium. From what Furea said, I don't think they've died since then."
"Artimis," Usagi asked, very puzzled, "Weren't they at peace with us then? Why are they so hostile with us now?"
"That's one thing I couldn't figure out," Artimis sighed.
"It has to have something to do with the Negaverse!" Makoto exclaimed, "The black fuku and dark moons they wear say it all!"
"That's probably right—"Ami started but stopped short when Rei stood straight up with a distant look in here eyes, "Rei-chan?"
"The fire!" she whispered desperately and tore out of the room and down the hall.
The other eight girls got up and followed as quickly as they could. The door to the fire reading room was wide open and Rei stood just inside it.
The fire had roared up almost to the ceiling and there were two figures to be seen inside of it.
One, standing respectfully behind the other, looked like she was meditating deeply. As the image firmed up, it became obvious that it was Sailor Red Sun.
Sitting on a large chair in front of the red senshi was a rather sickly looking young girl. She wore senshi fuku of a dark rainbow of colors, primarily dark yellow. Her skin was deathly pale and her blue eyes were lifeless. Her light blond hair was done into two pointed buns and pigtails that looped back up them, crowned with a dark yellow bow in her hair. This was the girl the inner senshi had rescued earlier that week.
The girl cleared her throat and shifted in her huge chair. Amazingly, they could hear as well as see her.
"Senshi of the Silver Moon," she said in a high, weak voice, "I am Princess Aiji, or Sailor Sunlight, heir to the Golden Millennium. It is good to see that you all are there. This way I can reach all of you at once.
"It has been brought to my attention that," she continued with a rather pained look on her face, "There have been several unprovoked attack on your part to my soldiers. A preposition was made and a vote was taken. The results were almost unanimous. I now declare in the times of a Sailor War!"
A smirk crossed Red Sun's face and her eyes opened slowly to stare straight into Rei's. "I told you that you would pay," she growled softly and the fire image disappeared. Unlike the first time that day, the fire did not die down. It only roared higher.
"Water!" Rei screamed, "Get water!" She sprinted from the room to find that two of her friends had already taken care of that.
"Mercury Aqua Rhapsody!"
"Neptune Deep Submerge!"
The two watery attacks extinguished the fire immediately with a hiss and a cloud of steam.
No one said anything for a long while.
"So," Uranus commented dryly, "Sailor War."