"Sailor Angel and Sailor Phosphora: The Fight Against Catastrophe"

Chapter Eight

By Angel Sentier and M'Lila Cronk

Two weeks later, despite the fact that all available senshi were supposed to be on patrol; Ami, Makoto, Luna, Artemis, Mamoru and Usagi, and even the Outer Senshi, were all at the Three Lights and Constellations debut concert. Sure, they felt a little guilty, but there was no way they were going to miss it. They assuaged a bit of the guilt by saying their fellow senshi NEEDED some people in their cheering section. Not even Luna and Artemis were balking about shirking their duties.

There had been no attacks since the one a few weeks ago, what were the odds of being attacked that night? Ami had actually worked it out, the odds weren't that great. There, even less guilt.

The screams were deafening as the lights lowered, but everyone noticed that there were quite a few guys in the audience too. And no wonder, the photo spreads on the Constellations were pretty sexed up. Well, sex sells better than anything else it does. Michiru had whispered to Makoto earlier that Haruka had bought a big poster of the four girls to hang up in their house, although Haruka had insisted directly afterward that it was only to support her fellow senshi.

The concert opened with a bang, the Three Lights onstage singing one of their most popular songs, 'Chasing After You.' However, in the middle of the song, the music stopped and four female voices came in, in perfect four-part harmony. The Constellations rose up out of the center of the stage and the music came up again, all seven of them continuing the song together.

The girls looked spectacular in their costumes. Minako's costume was done all in different blues, a Chinese-style dress, slit high up the sides, with lots of lighter blue shimmer gauze for long gauntlets, lining the inside of the dress and forming a small train, and streaming from the back of the gown, almost like watery wings. Apparently, no one had been able to make her take off her trademark red ribbon, though.

Zara's costume was more contemporary in style, allowing for more movement as she did more acrobatic dance moves than the other three. Her emerald cropped top dripped with sequins and seemed to be held together by many gold laces, her skirt was made of many sheer veils in varying shades of green and topaz. Her hair had been pulled up and braided into a complex style, then wound around in a bun, leaving tendrils to curl around her face. It was a very different look for her, as she usually left her hair down and all over the place, but it was very sophisticated this way.

Rei's costume was form-fitting like Minako's, but with spaghetti straps that criss-crossed across her back, and it seemed to be made of a more durable fabric, at least parts of it was, since some of her costume was supposed to look like it was flaming, with tongues of fire curling up her body. Her red gown had lots of gold glitter all over it, and she sparkled under the lights. Her hair had been pulled up into a high ponytail and curled, the smoke from the fire.

Celeste's white silk gown had been altered, as Taiki had said, with a slit up the front, revealing an expanse of her right leg. The capped sleeves had been shortened to reveal more of her shoulders and finished with long flowing sleeves in sheer shimmer fabric, similar to Minako's gauntlets. The gown had been dappled with silver sequins that sparkled like tiny stars to give it a more performance flare, and silk of the skirt seemed to flutter as she danced. Only the senshi knew that her lightness on her feet was due to the wings on her back, not high dexterity. With the wings, she appeared to be as good a dancer as the others, a fact that brought a true smile to her face as she performed.

The number went off without a hitch. The senshi in the stands had to admit that the groups sounded great together and the rest of the crowd agreed, if the applause was any indication.

The rest of the concert went underway, with the two groups switching off and intermingling flawlessly. Most of the Constellations' songs had small solos for each performer, but there were a few songs where one girl took the lead vocal and the rest backed her up, much like the Three Lights did with Seiya. The musical director, Ms. Yukika, had outdone herself with the orchestrations; the music was a spectacular setting for the performers' voices.

There was one song that had not been in the original set, but Celeste had brought it to the table, thinking it would be beautiful, if arranged for their voices. Seiya had raised an eyebrow, and mumbled a comment about it being presumptuous to assume the music director's job, but Ms. Yukika had thought it was a lovely piece and a good idea.

When asked where Celeste had found it, she lowered her eyes and said that it was merely an old song from where she came from. No one but her knew it had actually been written for her, a long time ago, and the author was long dead. It had been her fault, so she secretly had wanted to sing the song as a tribute, even if it was a private one.

It was partly through that song, halfway through the second act, when disaster struck.

A stage light crashed to the floor, just barely missing the girls. Amid screams of fright from the crowd, the Lights ran out onto the stage and Seiya examined the faulty machinery.

"Look," he said to Taiki in an undertone as Yaten and the girls ran damage control. He pointed to the place where the light would have been attached to the apparatus. "Melted through. This wasn't an accident."

"A youma? This is too much for a human to do, especially undetected."

"That's what I'm thinking."

As he said it, three more lights fell and this time all of them had to dodge the flying sparks and heavy lighting. The remaining lights were switched off and the performers went backstage, as their manager went to tell the audience that, due to technical difficulties, blah blah blah. The senshi were already on their way out of the stadium.

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The Lights and the girls gathered in the Constellations' dressing room, it being slightly larger.

"It couldn't have been a youma, the other senshi are all out there on patrol. They would have dusted anything in the area before it could have gotten near here," Minako was saying after hearing Seiya and Taiki's suspicions.

Just then, the remaining Inner senshi and the Outers burst through the door with Mamoru. "Thank God someone had the foresight to put us on the backstage list!" said Haruka.

"What are you all doing here?" demanded Rei.

Everyone had the decency to look guilty.

"It doesn't matter now," said Luna. "We have to go and defeat whatever youma did this."

"Hold it, people," said Zara. "You're all overlooking one thing here. That incident wasn't meant to hurt anybody."

"And lots of onlookers never stopped a youma from appearing in public before," said Ami.

"And don't you think if its attack had failed, it would have continued to try something else?" Zara continued. "Youma generally don't have this much finesse. This was meant as a message."

"A message of what?"

"'I'm baaaaa-aaaaaack'?"

"Not funny, Minako!"

"Say..." said Michiru, thoughtfully. "Weren't there four of you?"

Rei, Zara, and Minako looked around the room and Michiru was right. Celeste was missing.

"I don't remember her following us backstage," said Minako, beginning to panic.

"And why didn't Celeste say anything about this attack?" asked Rei. "Isn't she supposed to get premonitions?"

"Well, we could say the same about you, Rei," Ami commented.

"No, Rei's right," said Zara, her brow furrowing slightly. "Celeste would have known about this, and known who did it. Unless..."

"Unless what?"

Zara shrugged. "She might have been blocked somehow. You know, with a spell or something. I've done it before, though it's not easy, she's pretty well protected by the power of the Holy Crystal thingie."

"Holy Crystal?" repeated Setsuna.

"Just how many crystals are there?" Hotaru wanted to know.

"I don't know," Zara said. "But she carries a piece of the Holy one inside the Star Wand and that's where she derives her powers, which is why she can do a lot more than the rest of you." She flipped her ponytail behind one shoulder. "Of course, I can do whatever I want because I'm the heir to the Veidan throne... but that's another story. The actual Holy Crystal is kept where she comes from, beyond the galaxy cauldron; I've never been there. It might be against the rules, or something, but anyway, it has some kind of protection spell on her, it's the same for every Senshi of Danger."

"Whatever," said Matoko, impatient from Zara's ramblings, however interesting they might have been. "We have other things to worry about besides crystals and what they may or may not do."

"Oh, right. Well, in order for a spell to work on Celeste, she has to know the person really well. You know, kind of like a lowering of the guard."

"Then, if that's true, it's someone Celeste knows who did this?"

"Look, this is just a hypothesis..."

"Never mind all this! We have to go and find that youma!"

Everyone was beginning to talk at once. Mamoru stuck two fingers in his mouth and whistled loudly to get everyone's attention.

"This is getting us no where," he said. "For all you know, Celeste could have just gone out by herself to fight the youma. What's really important here is that Usako is safe..." At this, he turned to look at the petite blonde who had been nestled under his shoulder, prior to his having to break up the argument.

Usagi's conspicuous absence and the open door behind Mamoru made everyone rush for the stage door of one accord.

To be continued...