ALL THAT GLITTERS Chapter 7:
". . . Is Not Gold"
A Neo-Sailor Moon fanfic
By Bill K.
"Pallas!" Vesta cried. She broke into a full run toward her sister senshi and the plant that held her.
Sailor Pallas was limp in the grip of the plant's leaves, her arms around the stalk only because they were now held there. She stared up at the sky without seeing, her face a blank slate save for the huge smile betraying her utter contentment. Sailor Vesta ran up and grasped the leaves holding her fellow senshi's torso. Tugging against them with all the strength she could muster failed to budge them from around Sailor Pallas. Vesta looked deep into Pallas's eyes, desperately searching for some sign that her fellow Asteroid recognized her, but Pallas was like a limp doll in the grasp of the strange alien stalk.
"FAUNA ASSIMILATION - - GORILLA!" she bellowed.
Vesta's form rapidly expanded into a lowland gorilla, her black fur glistening in the high diffuse light of this world. Already she was beginning to feel light-headed from the exertion she'd expended in the world's thin atmosphere. But she doggedly pressed on, trying with her newly augmented strength to rip away the leaves holding the thing that was most dear to her. Simple leaves should have been no match for the gorilla's strength, but they somehow resisted her efforts.
Sailor Saturn saw none of this. She had already turned to a voice, a voice that should not have been there, a voice that it was not possible to have heard. Her violet eyes locked on the sight and all the rest of the world fell away.
"Yutaka?" Saturn whispered. She found her feet moving toward the wiry youth, drawn to his warm smile and his waiting arms.
"You look so impressive in your sailor fuku, Hotaru," he said, love cascading from him in waves. "I'd only seen pictures of you before. They don't do you justice."
"How did you get here?" Saturn asked.
"Does it matter? I'm here because I wanted to be here. I'm here because the thought of being away from you for another second was more than I could stand."
"Did you read that in a book?" Saturn grinned shyly.
"No," Yutaka grinned. "Those are my own feelings this time."
"You shouldn't be here, Yutaka. It could be dangerous."
"I'll brave any danger to see you. I'll fight any foe to touch you." Yutaka reached out to Sailor Saturn, now just a foot away from him. "I love you, Hotaru."
Sailor Saturn stood still as Yutaka's fingers lightly caressed along her cheek. She felt her heart flutter. Every care seemed to wash out of her body.
"Sailor Juno," came an ominous whisper of a voice. Juno turned away from Pallas and Vesta to the sound.
"Sailor Pluto?" Juno inquired. "Are the others with you?"
"I know what you seek, young senshi," Sailor Pluto announced. She stood tall and straight, her staff clutched in both hands. Her eyes stared directly at Sailor Juno and seemed to beckon her.
"What do you mean?" Juno asked.
"Your identity," Pluto replied. "Your birth - - your parents - - the keys to unlocking who you are. I've seen your birth as I have witnessed everything that has occurred since the beginning of time itself."
"You know who my parents are?" Juno gasped, almost moved to tears.
"Yes," Pluto nodded seductively.
"Tell me!" Juno cried, moving toward the Senshi of Time. "Please! I have to know!"
"Then take my hand," Pluto smiled, "and all your questions will be answered."
A final strain from Vesta the gorilla proved futile. The leaf slipped from her grasp and she stumbled backwards, falling on her back against something thin and solid, yet yielding. It wasn't important to Vesta. Only rescuing Pallas mattered to her. The gorilla started to scramble to her feet.
"Pallas!" Vesta cried as Sailor Pallas broke away from the stalk and ran to her. She reverted to human form just in time. Pallas flung herself against Vesta and hugged her.
"Oh, Vesta, Pallas was so scared!" the girl wailed. Vesta closed her arms around her sister senshi.
"It's OK now, Stupid," Vesta cooed tenderly. "I won't let them get you again."
Pallas nestled in closer and suddenly Sailor Vesta didn't have a care in the world.
Sailor Ceres felt something brush her shoulder. Whirling around, she found a surprising sight.
"Gallan?" Ceres gaped, confused.
"It is I, my dear Cere," Gallan smiled at her. "I have come to join you, to aid you in your quest."
"But," Ceres stammered, "you were asleep - - hibernating."
"Love is the solution for a great many things, my everything," Gallan said. His thumb tenderly passed across Sailor Ceres' lips.
But all at once Ceres pulled away. She retreated several paces, crouched into a defensive position. Her hands were balled into fists by her side. Her eyes blazed with naked loathing.
"Cere?" Gallan appealed to her. "You have nothing to fear. It is I!"
"Don't hand me that!" snarled Ceres. "Maybe all of the rest of your victims couldn't tell one plant from another, but I can!"
Taking a moment to glance over her shoulder, Ceres found Saturn and Vesta were already being enveloped in the leaves of stalks, while Juno walked toward another stalk as if in a trance.
"JUNO!" she shouted. "It's not real! Stay away from it!"
Just then Gallan, or more accurately the stalk projecting the illusion it was Gallan, grabbed Ceres' wrist and tried to pull her to him. Ceres struggled to pull away, but the alien entity was quite strong.
"Floral Stimulation!" Ceres roared.
Exerting her power over plants, the young senshi tried to take control of the stalk. Immediately it recoiled, releasing her wrist, and its Gallen form began to fade like the morning mist. Ceres was right - - it was one of the alien stalks. However, the plant resisted Ceres' attempts to take control of it. The being's mind was strong - - that was a given since it was able to project illusions into the brains of other beings. It was alien, too, and Ceres had a difficult time establishing control. Defensively the stalk lashed out again with its leaves. Due mostly to the self-defense training the elder senshi had insisted they take, Ceres was able to avoid the lashing leaves.
"I can't get control of it!" Ceres thought as she strained to possess the alien plant. "It's like trying to hold onto a fish in a brook!" Dropping her concentration as much as she dared, Ceres searched her mind for an alternative attack. "What would Sailor Mars do in a situation like this?"
Sailor Mars would use her fire to immolate the plant or her wards to disable it. Ceres had none of these. She needed Saturn's glaive - - or her own knowledge of plants.
Without hesitation, Sailor Ceres charged the stalk. With all the momentum she'd gained, the senshi flung herself against the stalk, hunched her shoulders and pushed. The stalk's leaves grasped her shoulders and tried to envelop her, but Ceres warded off the hypnotic mental images trying to flood her brain. The girl kept straining against the trunk of the stalk. She could see the roots of the plant were dug into the ground securely. Either the sandy ground itself would give way or the trunk of the stalk would - - or she would.
But that wasn't an option. And the loud, creaky, rending sound signaling the stalk breaking in half was music to her ears. Panting, she took a moment to look at the severed stalk lying on the ground and make sure it was dead. Then she turned to Sailor Juno.
"Juno!" she cried out, for Juno was at that moment within the grip of an alien stalk, her trance preventing her from seeing the danger she willingly entered.
Sailor Ceres was not an athlete. She detested sports, submitted reluctantly to the required self-defense training and found the concept of sweating and exertion disgusting. But she sprinted at full speed across the sandy surface of the planet, her lungs scouring the thin atmosphere for enough oxygen to continue. Every step of the way she cursed herself for not being faster and stronger because she feared she wasn't going to make it. Something, some inner voice made her leap at the last moment, flinging herself at Sailor Juno, even as leafy green tendrils began to surround the senshi. Ceres impacted with Juno and the force of her momentum was enough to rip Juno from the plant's grasp. The pair impacted with the ground and both lay stunned for a moment. What wrenched Ceres back to consciousness was the terrible wail of agony emitted by the alien plant, a wail only she could sense.
"Juno?" Ceres gasped, out of breath and her chest burning. "Juno, snap out of it!"
"Where," Juno asked, coming back to coherence in spurts. "Where is she? She knows! Where did she go?"
"There was nobody there, Juno," Ceres panted. "That plant fed you an illusion so you'd come close enough for it to grab you."
"What?" Juno asked, reluctant to let go of the vision.
Then Sailor Saturn caught her eye. Saturn was limp, her eyes vacant, while leaves encircled her torso and held her to a stalk. The only sign of life in her was the faint rise and fall of her chest and the huge smile of utter contentment on her lips.
Horrified, Juno turned around. Off to her right, Vesta was wrapped up in leaves, limp and happy. Beyond her, Pallas dangled from another stalk. Then a movement caught her peripheral vision and she turned to her left. A stalk was reaching for her with its leaves, but they were just out of reach. And then it wasn't a stalk - - it was Sailor Pluto. The vision faded after a moment and it became a stalk again. Juno recoiled in disgust.
"I know," Ceres whispered. "One of them tried to make me think it was Gallan." Ceres forced herself to her feet, then tugged on Juno. "Come on! We've got to get the others away from those things!" Ceres locked onto Sailor Saturn's glaive, lying on the ground near Saturn's feet. "And I think I know just the way."
Forcing leaden limbs forward, Ceres reached the glaive. The plant was too preoccupied with Saturn to notice them. Ceres gripped the glaive as Juno approached cautiously from behind her.
"God, this thing weighs a ton!" Ceres cried, straining to lift it. "And Saturn spins it around like it's made of plastic!"
"Do you need help?" Juno asked.
"I think I've got it," Ceres grunted, hefting the glaive up.
She swung it back as much as she could, then brought the blade of the glaive down on the base of the stalk. The glaive bit deeply into the plant.
And Sailor Saturn emitted a howl of agony that reverberated across the field. So chilling was the sound that it stopped Juno in her tracks.
"Hold it, Ceres!" Juno cried when she saw Ceres was preparing for another stroke. "That plant has linked with Saturn somehow! When you hurt it, you hurt her, too!"
"We don't have any choice!" Ceres barked back.
"But . . .!"
"Juno, that plant is FEEDING OFF OF HER!" Ceres bellowed.
Juno gaped in revulsion.
"I sensed it when I tried to take control of the one that attacked me! That's why they lure mammals into their grasp! Once they have a mammal in their grip, they start sucking the life out of it!" She glanced back fearfully at Saturn. "And all the while the victim thinks its in heaven - - right up to the moment it's consumed."
"Well, you're just as likely to kill Saturn or yourself swinging that glaive around," Juno told her. "Let me try something."
"What can you do?"
"Every living thing needs water," Juno said, focusing on the plant. "Plants, animals, everything. Aqua Initiation!"
Pointing her hands as she spoke her power phrase, Sailor Juno brought her power to bear on the plant. Mist began rising from the plant. Ceres could sense it shrivel and brown even before she saw it.
"You're drawing the water out of it?" Ceres gasped.
"Dehydration is the non-violent way of killing weeds," Juno replied.
"Juno!" her sister cried, pointing. "Look at Saturn!"
Looking, Juno saw deep lines forming on Saturn's shriveling, leathery skin.
"It's sucking harder from Saturn to try to survive!" Juno realized.
"Come on!" Ceres said. "Let's try to push it over! Maybe the gash and the wilting weakened it enough!"
Together, though reluctantly in Juno's case, the pair tackled Saturn and the stalk. Though it resisted, the combination of everything proved too much for the plant. The stalk ripped away from its roots. Once on the ground, the now brittle leaves holding Saturn broke away. Saturn rolled onto the ground and Juno was immediately over her.
"Aqua Initiation!" Juno cried, holding her hands level over the dehydrated and weak Saturn.
"Is she going to be all right?" Ceres asked.
"I hope. I'm trying to rehydrate her, but it's not a simple thing to do. While I'm doing that, you need to get Vesta and Pallas away from those things!"
Ceres nodded. Dragging the glaive beside her, Ceres moved toward her sister senshi. Her heart was pounding in her chest and her lungs burned. It felt like she hadn't had a drink in twenty years. And Ceres was inwardly thankful that there weren't any reflective surfaces around, because if she saw that she looked like she felt, she'd probably end it all. But she had a duty to the only family she had left. She would save them.
Even Vesta.
The trip seemed to take far longer than Ceres wanted. The combination of the weighty glaive, the thin atmosphere and the urgent situation made her feet seem like lead. She could see lines were already forming under the eyes of Sailor Pallas. Being smaller than the rest, Pallas was the most susceptible to physical stress - - besides her and that was because she dodged her training. Pallas was the logical choice to free first.
But when Sailor Ceres tried to swing the glaive again, it proved to be too heavy for her in her weakened condition. Emitting a frustrated sob, Ceres turned to Sailor Vesta. Vesta was on the ground, closer to the glaive's edge. Kneeling down next to her sister, Ceres strained to hoist the blade up, then began sawing at the leaves holding her to the stalk.
Immediately Vesta howled in agony.
"Oh, shut up!" Ceres sobbed, struggling to continue cutting as Vesta wailed. "This is for your own good, you ape! You're - - 'sniff' - - always complaining."
The unstoppable edge of Saturn's glaive was hacking into the leaves where nothing else before had an effect. Thick yellowish-red sap bubbled up from the gash in the plant and oozed down the leaf. Ceres wanted to vomit, but she pushed herself on. And Vesta's howling grew worse.
Unexpectedly a leaf detached itself from Vesta and lashed out at Ceres, striking her across the face. Reeling from the stinging, whip-like blow, Ceres tumbled backwards into the gritty soil, the glaive falling at the root of the stalk. Tears bubbled in her eyes as she glanced back at Vesta over her shoulder. The leaf had wrapped itself around the now calm Vesta's throat. Vesta looked on, unseeing in her blissful trance. Ceres tried to get up, but her strength was gone. Every inch of her body hurt and every breath she took seemed to resemble inhaling razor blades.
"Get up," Ceres admonished herself. "They need you! Get up!"
But she couldn't. She didn't have the strength.
Unwilling to cede the struggle, Ceres stuck out a wobbly hand and aimed it at the stalk holding Vesta.
"F-Floral," she gasped out, "Stimulation!"
The stalk tightened its grip on Sailor Vesta when it felt Ceres attempt to possess it. Ceres fought past her fatigue, trying to gain control of the plant. Its resistance was as strong as the other one. Though she couldn't gain control of it, the stalk was so occupied with forcing her away that Ceres sensed it was no longer feeding.
"That's good," Ceres thought. "Vesta's safe - - as long as I don't pass out."
Which, Ceres suddenly realized, might be just a few seconds away. Then a white glove trimmed in violet came into her field of vision. It reached down and the glaive seemed to leap into the hand inside it. Ceres followed it up and saw Sailor Saturn holding the glaive as if it weighed no more than an ounce.
"Let me try," Saturn said to her. Ceres could tell the senshi wasn't fully recovered, but she wasn't much better.
The glaive spun around in the air at terrific speed. No more than a blur, the blade sliced down between the stalk and Vesta's back, cleaving the leaves holding her. Vesta whimpered in pain, then slumped to the ground. The stalk snapped back, then was severed from its roots by a single cross stroke.
"How is she?" Ceres croaked out as Juno knelt down to check her.
"Don't worry," Juno replied, flashing her a timid smile. "She's too ornery to die. You know that."
"I'm surprised the stalk didn't puke," panted Ceres.
The air whistled when Saturn's glaive cleaved it. The downstroke sliced through the leaves holding Pallas, amid a gut-wrenching howl of agony from the small senshi. Juno quickly caught her and eased her to the ground while Saturn wielded her glaive like a scythe and mowed the stalk down. Then the glaive shifted in her hand, the handle coming down to the ground to act as a brace for the dizzy girl.
"Saturn?" Ceres gasped.
Saturn waved her off. "Just the air," she alibied. "It's so thin, I - - can't catch my breath."
"Yeah," Ceres nodded wanly, even though she knew it was more.
"Pallas?" Juno cried with alarm as she held the limp senshi. "Pallas isn't breathing!"
Continued in Chapter 8
