We reappeared in a wide park, a beautiful, chic young woman and a nobody in baggy clothes. The park overlooked either a very small lake or a very large pond. Whatever it was, it sparkled in the sunlight. I looked back at Setsuna, Pluto, whoever she was, and asked, "What am I supposed to do now? What about everything back home?" She smiled in a mysterious way.
"Everything has been taken care of. For now, you will live with me in my apartment," the other girl replied. I nodded in agreement. Suddenly loud laughter interrupted our conversation. We both turned to look in the direction of the noise and Setsuna chuckled. "There is your first assignment. Those are the guardians of the Inner Solar System, the Sailor Senshi. Make friends with them, it shouldn't be hard." I stood, flabbergasted. The guardians of the Solar System were only children, to my eyes at least. They could not have been over sixteen years old. I was at least four years older than the lot of them. There were five; two blondes,one of which wore her hair in strange balls and pigtails, one girl had long blue black hair, another brown, and the last had short, dark blue hair. As I watched, a young man, who was probably about my age, walked towards the group. The blonde with the weird hairstyle shot to her feet when she saw him, raced to him and enfolded him in a tight hug, which he returned, lovingly. I smiled. Those two must be Serenity and Endymion, which would make the girl Sailor Moon. I looked closer. The girl with the blue hair could only be Mercury. That hair color was characteristic of the Mercuran royal line, even when I first lived, before the ascension of Serenity the first to the Lunar throne. The tallest girl had to be Jupiter. She looked as fierce as the storms of her home planet. I had visited there once before, with the High Court of my planet. In my time, I had been a bodyguard to High King Chronos, High Queen Kiros, and High Princess Eternity. Now, they were all dead. I pulled myself back from memories. Now my job was to protect someone else, someone even more important than my High Princess. I sighed and began to walk in their direction. The girls had all gotten to their feet and were now playing a game of Frisbee. The yellow and green disk flew high and wide suddenly, over the head of the senshi from Jupiter. She jumped to catch it, but missed. The raven haired girl and the young man dived for it, but it flew just out of their reach. I recognized Pluto's doing just as the disk soared in my direction. Without thinking I made an enormous leap and caught it. The girls came jogging over towards me, followed by the young man. "Wow! That was an awesome catch!" the Princess from Jupiter said. I smiled.
"Thanks. I'm Lamia," I replied. The first blonde stepped closer to me, dragging her boyfriend with her.
"I'm Serena," she said, "and this is my boyfriend, Darien." She clutched his arm closer. "These are Rei," the black-haired girl, "Ami," Mercury, "Mina", the other blonde, she had to be Venus, "and Lita," Jupiter.
"Nice to meet you all. It looks like you were having fun," I said in reply as I handed the disk back to Mina.
"Yeah," Mina agreed. "Hey, you wanna play?" she asked. I smiled. "Sure"
"Great! Let's go," that was Rei. We ranged out in a circle and an interesting game ensued. After a while, we were all hot and tired so we called an end to the game. We fell into individual heaps on the green grass. Suddenly someone, I had no idea who, said, "Let's go to the arcade." There was a chorus of agreement from the rest of the girls and they all stood up. I remained where I was and they stopped walking away to turn back and look at me expectantly. "Well, are you coming?" the one who had spoken before said. I realized that it was Ami, the Mercuran princess.
"Sure, fine with me!" I replied and got to my feet to join them. It only took us ten minutes, minus the time we took picking Serena up off the ground after she collided with an iron post while walking backwards, to reach the Crown Arcade. When we got inside Darien and I laughed quietly as the girls raced each other for the games. We took a seat at the bar, Darien watching them, me looking out into space. After a few minutes, I heard Darien talking to someone.
"Hey, Andrew! What's up"
"Nothing much, how're you?" I heard another voice say. Nothing registered after that, because that voice was so familiar. I came back to earth when I heard Darien calling my name.
"Lamia, Lamia, are you in there? Lamia, come back to Earth!" He was waving his hand in front of my face. I jumped. "Are you OK?" he asked.
"Yeah, I'm fine," I said. He handed me a glass of soda and I accepted it meekly. "This is my friend, Andrew," Darien continued. I spun around and looked into a young man's eyes. Suddenly, I was caught beyond time again, but this time I could feel that that young man named Andrew was caught with me. We stared into each others eyes in mute recognition as two words echoed through my brain; Crystal Blade. I realized who he was just as I broke the contact between us. He was my true love from my past life, a life he could never, would never remember now. His name was Dragon then, his alias, Crystal Blade. As I broke eye contact I could hear him in my mind through the telepathic bond that had obviously never been destroyed between us, Who are you... I flinched, then buried it. "Nice to meet you," I said out loud. "I'm Lamia." He smiled in return and broke my heart. I had watched him die, protecting me from the same hand that later killed me. Oh, god, I had watched him die. I blanked my past and smiled back at him. It was small comfort that he seemed to be having almost the same experience that I was. He stuck his hand out and I extended mine to him in the feminine way, almost without realizing it. He lifted my hand and kissed it as though it was the most natural thing in the world. Perhaps it was.
"The pleasure is all mine," he replied. I giggled slightly. The exchange had brought us back to the world of the living. He let go of my hand and punched Darien playfuly in the shoulder. "So, how long have you known this old buzzard?" I laughed outright.
"All of maybe two hours. We met while playing frisbee," I said.
"I assume you've met the girls then," he looked towards his most noisy patrons.
"Oh, yes. They're all really sweet. How long have you known them"
"A very long time." Suddenly, something crashed through the window.
It was a black and flourescent green ball about six feet in diamater and it unrolled into a huge monster. It had long, greenish teeth that protruded from a doglike snout and it's tail bore a huge stinger like that of a scorpian. People screamed and began scrambling for the doors as it cast hungry eyes around the building. Like a flash, it whipped its tail around towards me. Andrew leapt from over the counter to knock me out of the way. We landed with him on top of me, our faces only inches apart. "Get out of here," I whispered. "Run! I'll follow you. Get the others out of here!" He nodded, suprisingly enough. While the monster faced the other way, he rolled off of me and moved towards the door, pulling a couple uncouncious people after him. I saw the senshi run towards the bathrooms out of the corner of my eye as I crawled behind the counter. Once out of sight, I raised my hand to eye level and softly said, "Nightfyre ... Sparks ... Rise!" The sapphire and onyx ring that I now wore on my right hand began to glow. Silver flames wreathed outward from it and covered my entire body. When they dissapated, I was in my Nightfyre uniform. I jumped to the top of the counter and watched as the senshi magicly appeared to say their speeches. There were several victems on the floor already, so drained of lifeblood that they were transparent.
I looked away in revulsion. Suddenly, the monster was sending killing blasts from its poison stiger towards the senshi. They scrambled for their lives. Mars got one of her fire attacks out and Jupiter used one of her thunder ones , but to no avail. Mercury, typing away on her minicomputer, yelled,
"Sailor Moon! Dust it!" The Moon Princess sent her strongest attack flying. It did only minor damage. A tuxedo clad man swept her out of the way of another stinger attack while Venus' golden chain imprisoned the thing for a few moments. There was no way they could win this one. This thing was way to strong. I yelled out as it advanced upon a cowering Sailor Moon.
"Born of the brightest darkness of eternity, I am Nightfyre! While I yet live, no scum of your type shall and you may tell your masters so, demon of poison!" It blasted a bolt of energy from its stinger at me, which I dodged. I perpared my attack, reveling in the power courseing through my body. "Nightfyre ..." I threw both of my hands above my head. "Darkness..." Black fire spurted from my fingertips and grew until it encased both of my hands and engulphed some of the air around them. "Dome ..." The black flames shot from my hands to completely cover the monster. "Now, Sailor Moon!" I yelled, risking breaking my concentration.
Thankfully, the girl obliged me and threw her attack into my darkness. I finished the attack. "Magnify!" The fire of the dome magnified Sailor Moon's attack. When the fire dissapeared, the monster was mere dust. The people who had been drained of their lifeblood had regained color, but still no movement. I whispered, "Nightfyre LifeBlood Renew!" a command that allowed the stilled hearts to begin pumping again. Mars approached me tenativly, the other senshi close behind her.
"Who are you?" she asked. I smiled.
"I'm a friend, don't worry. I'm here to protect your princess," I replied, gestureing at Sailor Moon. "I have to go now. Take care!" I waved my hand and dissapeared in a rush of black, blue, and silver flames.
I DO NOT own Sailor Moon.
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