Chapter 10: Frozen Discovery

Batafurai quickly pulled Taiga into a nearby alley. "Remember when Devin said you MIGHT be from the future like I am. Well, he was right. You've got this strange marking growing on your forehead. From Devin's little muttering of 'Mercury," I'd assume you're a Little Sailor Senshi."

Taiga looked very confused. "Little Sailor Senshi? Mercury? Marking? Batafurai, you're not making any sense."

"Taiga, do you have some type of item you found AFTER you were brought here?" Devin asked.

Taiga nodded and pointed to a necklace around her neck. It was a simple pendant on a chain. The pendant looked like a shard of ice with the Symbol of Mercury within it. "What's so special about this necklace?"

Devin, hopping off Batafurai's shoulder, commanded, "Batafurai, she's Little Mercury. I'm sure of it. Transform yourself now so we can find a way to awaken her transformation item!"

Batafurai nodded. She pointed to her brooch and explained to Taiga, "This is all very hard to explain in words. I'm what Devin calls a 'Pretty Suited Sailor Soldier of love and justice.' My name is Sailor Little Moon once I transform. Hopefully, transforming myself will explain a few things…LITTLE CRYSTAL POWER!"

As soon as Sailor Little Moon was totally transformed, her tiara disappeared. In its place was a golden crescent moon, located on the same part of her forehead that Taiga's mark was. Her brooch opened and the jewel flashed. A beam of light came out of the jewel, striking Taiga's necklace pendant. It levitated over Taiga's head as it was surrounded in a sphere of blue light. Suddenly, the light dispersed and a small, strange rod levitating in place of the necklace. The Symbol of Mercury glowed in the top of the rod, and then faded to become a metallic blue. As the rod dropped, Taiga instinctively caught it.

The newly-released rod was only around 18 centimeters long. It was basically a heart on a stick. The heart was blue and bore a yellow-green oval on the front face. Within this oval was the Symbol of Mercury. The handle-like part of the rod was blue, with a small, yellow-green cap. The cap-like part bore a small, blue sphere. A small, golden yellow star rested on top of the heart. Inside the body of the star was a round, blue crystal.

Taiga turned the rod over in her hands a few times, and then looked up at Little Moon. "…Should I just do the motion you did and shoot off this phrase stuck in my head?"

"Hm…basically."

Taiga sighed, raising the rod above her head. "My skirt better not be as short as yours…LITTLE MERCURY POWER!"

The Symbol of Mercury glowed blue, the rod forming out behind it. Taiga grabbed it, her nails becoming blue and the rod releasing a burst of light. Taiga, her body glowing blue and yellow-green, was then seen spinning slowly. She held her rod in her right hand, arm outstretched above her head. It released streams of water that covered her entire body. The water suddenly froze and Taiga stopped spinning. Cracks formed in the ice, then exploded out in a blast of yellow-green and blue light. Taiga, now transformed, spun once again, and then posed: arms crossed at mid-forearm in front of her chest, feet apart.

Her outfit was very similar to the one Sailor Little Moon wore. Her pleated mini-skirt, collar, brooch, boots, glove bands, and tiara jewel were blue. Her front and back bows were both yellow-green. She wore ankle-height boots with thick, two and a half centimeter heels. They were laced with dark green laces. The brooch on the front of her bow was a plain, blue circle. Small, blue studs were in here earlobes.

The new Little Senshi looked at herself, blushing furiously. She desperately tried to pull down her mini-skirt. "Who in their perverted mind created these outfits? I'm barely clothed!"

Devin sweat dropped. "Quit whining, Sailor Little Mercury. You have more important things to attend to. You, along with Little Moon here, are to fight that youma out there. Your attack will come to you just like your transformation phra…"

Little Mercury cut him off in mid sentence. "OOHH no! I am NOT going out there looking like THIS!"

Little Moon sighed. "Little Mercury, believe it or not, this is our DESTINY. We have a responsibility to this city—no, this ERA—and we can't turn our backs on them. If and when you decide to help, come and join me." She had barely taken three steps when she felt Little Mercury's hand on her shoulder.

"I'm not letting you do this alone."

The youma let loose a screeching laugh, once again hitting the Inner Senshi.

"Darn it! Why can't we hit this thing?" Jupiter, clad in green and sugar pink, asked.

"Maybe we're just going about this wrong…" Mercury, wearing two shades of blue, replied.

"You Senshi will never defeat the Neo-Dreamers!" the youma yelled.

"ROSE BUD EXPLOSION!"

Before the Inner Senshi could even sit up, an object hit the youma square in the face and exploding on contact. It screeched, furiously rubbing its eyes.

"STOP RIGHT THERE, CREEP!" two girls yelled. The Inners turn to see Sailor Little Moon and Sailor Little Mercury standing side-by-side a distance from them.

"Attacking the future is dishonorable enough," Little Moon began.

"But attacking people here in the present is worse yet," Little Mercury added.

"Standing for the Tokyo of the future, I, Sailor Little Moon, shall punish you!"

"Standing for the planet, Mercury, in the future, I, Sailor Little Mercury, shall also punish you!"

Sailor Mercury immediately blushed crimson. "Sailor…Little Mercury?"

Sailor Venus, in orange and navy blue, blinked a few times. "Now there's two of them…"

"LOOK!" the youma interrupted, "I don't care if there are a HUNDRED of you Senshi! You are all going to die here and now!"

"Not if I have any say in it! MARS…" Sailor Mars, in red and purple, held her right hand out to her side. The Symbol of Mars glowed red there as fire erupted outward. She drew back the string of a loaded bow of fire as she yelled, "FLAME SNIPER!" The flaming arrow erupted outward, nailing the youma square in the chest.

Little Mercury watched, a phrase running through her mind. 'Well…no better time than the present to try this...' She held her right hand straight out in front of her, a ball of ice growing on the palm. Once it grew to the size of a baseball, she clenched her fist. The ball exploded within her fist, light showing between her fingers. She pulled her fist close, then thrusted it outward yelling, "MERCURY ICE SHARDS SLICE!" Razor-sharp pieces of ice were propelled forward. The youma yelped in pain, rubbing the places that had been hit.

Little Moon summoned her wand, knowing she had a chance to attack. "MOON FLOATING BUTTERLFY SMASH!" The attack did a large ammount of damage to the youma, but it did not destroy it.

"Let me take it from here, Little Moon. VENUS…" Sailor Venus held her right hand out to the side, much like Mars had done. The Symbol of Venus glowed on her palm in orange, stars soon flowing outward from it. Venus blew a kiss and caught it herself. A heart multiplied itself around her waist, then became one again. "LOVE AND BEAUTY SHOCK!" The heart hit the youma, dealing the finishing blow.

"YOU WILL NEVER WIN!" It screamed as it became a bolt of light that shot off into the sky.

The Inner Senshi then turned to the Little Senshi. Mars was the first to speak. "Just who ARE you two?"

"We're Senshi in the wrong time period, basically…" Little Mercury replied, looking a bit intimidated.

"I'll tell you exactly what I told the Outers: We're here to prevent a fatal invasion of Crystal Tokyo. The enemy knows how to create a secrect base here, one of which only we two can know of. Pluto can validate that. We're also correcting destiny," Little Moon said.

"DESTINY?" the four Inners asked in unision. They were, however, cut off by an explosion that rocked the city and knocked them off their feet.

Yes, another cliffie. Cut me some slack, it's 5:16 a.m. and I'm exhausted.

EDITED 9/19/05: Fixed a minor error on Taiga's transformation item.

Hit count at posting: 294
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