I would like to thank Ghost in the Machine for pre-reading this chapter with his trusty baseball bat and microscope.
Constructive criticism always welcome.
Boldly going where others had gone before and meekly going where few have been.
I don't own any of these characters or situations, this is done purely for fun. As always the spelling errors are mine, as are the grammar mistakes. I still have hopes that I am getting better by now and there are less of them.
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Juuban part 13
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Fumiki was loaded onto the bus being pushed along by the crush of people that were fanatically trying to escape the violence that suddenly erupted in the park. The popping noises were now surrounding them, coming from in and around the area. The orderly evacuation deteriorated into a mad rush as people scrambled to get out of the park. Fumiki thought she saw one of the things fire something at someone, but she couldn't tell. Everything was so fast and confused that she didn't realize she was on a bus until she heard someone yell, "That's the last of them go! Go! Go!"
Fumiki, holding her side, collected her wits and scanned the people's faces on the bus hoping to find Aki. As the bus rumbled along, she turned her head to examine the faces behind her.
Nothing.
He wasn't here.
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Sailor Sun held her pose before becoming aware of a large on-coming-thing. It was much larger than the other Protectors that she had just disposed of. This one would tower over her if she was standing next to it. Even though appearance-wise it followed the same pattern as the others, there was something different about it, something about the way it flowed through the fabric of space. Sun realized that there were small and tightly controlled warpages of space coming from within it. For what purpose she could only guess at.
Alarm bells rang in her head, like when she approached the wormhole for the first time.
She chose once again to ignore the vague warnings.
"This is going to be easy," Sun thought confidently to herself as the overgrown Protector rapidly neared. She glanced over to make sure that she was a safe distance of the interfering wormhole, then compressed time and attacked at the same moment. It was in that moment she realized something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong.
The rain of interfering warpages from the descending Protector destabilized and collapsed the time compression field of Sun almost the instant she tried to power it up. With such force that when the time field collapsed, that there was a "rebound" effect. The energy that was channeled into the shattered time field warped the space around Sun violently. The spatial distortions had an affect on the Protector as it descended through it.
The Protector seemed to shudder and swell up, and pieces of it seemed to drift apart from the main body. It landed with a splat before Sun. Then just as quickly the whole mass bounded away and collected itself. It stood there, twenty feet away, wavering as if uncertain over what had just occurred.
Even though dismayed at the situation, Sun quickly took advantage the Protectors distraction. She charged and attacked with chestnut speed with her sword. Her movements, boosted by her Senshi state, broke the sound barrier with sharp cracking sounds. With sweeps of her sword, the large humanoid thing was bisected and bisected again in several sections that crisscrossed its grotesque body.
"That should be - ," Sun spoke aloud before her field of vision was filled with a flesh-colored, very large, and very hard fist.
KA-WAP
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Neptune watched as the largest Protector that they had encountered so far fall to earth with a definite 'splat'. The sound reminded her of a watermelon falling off the table, just greatly amplified. The lump bounded away and gathered itself and stood, facing Sailor Sun.
Sun blurred.
She was stunned at the speed Sun tore into the giant Protector. One second she was standing a good twenty feet away, the next she was slicing the Protector to bits with her sword. She covered her ears to shield them from the sharp cracking sounds that Sun's sword were making as she made mince meat out of the Protector.
Or so she thought.
Neptune heard Sun say, "That should be -" before she disappeared with a large smacking sound of flesh meeting flesh, and the Protector stood with arm extended.
Sailor Sun got batted away like an unwanted child's toy.
It was at that moment that she knew they were in trouble.
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The world was tumbling uncontrollably. The ground and the sky quickly alternating in a wild mixture of images. Something inside told her that it wasn't the world that was upset, but it was herself that was cart-wheeling unchecked through the air. Working on instinct alone, Sun tried to stabilize her unexpected and uncontrolled flight with her warp bubbles, but was interrupted by striking something hard. Her tumbling slowed as she again struck several somethings that were equally as hard. When the world settled, she discovered herself embedded in a wall among the rubble that was once was a display of alarm clocks.
Shaking her head free of the cobwebs from her landing, she questioned mentally, "What in the hell happened?"
Checking herself for injuries before moving, Sun discovered that she was stiff, sore and very shaken. She was in shock by being taken completely by surprise like that, but otherwise unharmed. With the exception of her pride.
Gathering herself together, she pulled herself free from the imprisoning wall. She slumped to the floor as her legs folded under her. Turning to look at the impression her body made on the wall, she noted that there was a steel support beam that prevented her from going all the way through the building. Looking around the scene more, Sun found that her flight had been apparently slowed by at least two other support beams, the flooring and the hand rails of a stairwell she had passed through.
"Thank goodness for building codes," Sun thought as shakily got to her feet.
Then she realized that she got decked. Big time.
"Idiot! I'm getting too damn cocky," she berated herself. Pausing to think as she continued her self evaluation, "I've been too damn cocky since the beginning of this whole mess."
She brushed the remains of a "Hello Kitty" alarm clock off her shoulder, "I was careless around the wormhole and now with this Protector. I assuming that since I have all this damn power that I'm untouchable. Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!" She sighed while working a kink out of her back, "I gotta stop being so stupid or I'm going to lose this fight."
She backtracked through the path that she made in the building. Sun was surprised to find herself looking out the back of a high-rise store on the fourth floor. Across the alley below, was another store that she evidently passed through before almost going completely through the store she came to rest in. Somewhere in the distant, the muffled sound of fighting was heard.
"Must pack a mean wallop," Sun surmised. She considered flying, but decided to sprint back instead to work her newly acquired stiffness out of her muscles from her unexpected trip. Leaping from the hole in the side of the building and landing softly in the alleyway below, she turned in the direction of the part.
Dashing through the alleyway toward the park, Sun used the opportunity to try to come up with a game plan. Checking her time field, she found it to be back to the fluctuating condition that it was after the encounter with the wormhole. The protector had the same effected on her time field as the wormhole did. Could there be a connection?
"I'm a bigger idiot than I thought, always depending on one thing," she swore to herself. "What the hell's wrong with me? Did I forget how to fight?"
She continued on her way through the alley, leaping over a ash can, "No, that's not it. I just got too damn arrogant, too damn careless and too damn stupid."
Approaching the mouth of the alley, she spied the low wall of the park across the wide avenue. "There's the park, one leap and I'll be back in the fight again."
As she prepared for a running leap that would carry her over the wall and into the park, she heard the sounds of shouting and the popping noises of automatic weapons. She slowed for a moment as she neared the entrance of the alley, trying to determine which direction the automatic fire was coming from. This was proving difficult, for the gunfire was echoing off the surrounding walls. Hoping to assist any JDF forces that may need immediate aid before returning to her own fight, she slowed down to a trot.
At the mouth of the alley, Sun looked right and saw nothing. Looking left, she was suddenly blinded by a flash of light and deafened by a large 'boom' that overshadowed all the other sounds of battle. The very ground reverberated and shook from what must have been an impact of a high energy weapon. Her armor field automatically was fed more power.
She instinctively raised her arms across her face to protect it from something that flew into her field of vision, barely seen through the intense light of the explosion. Struck by flying debris, she felt the hard and soft objects strike her armor fields, some leaving a wet sensation behind.
Then there was silence.
Lowering her arms, she blinked her eyes clear and looked about her to see what had transpired. There was a large crater about ten feet across about thirty feet from the entrance of the alleyway, the pavement around was scorched and burnt. She took a step forward to continue on her way to the park and almost tripped over a blackened lump of something near her feet that she couldn't identify. Looking closer, she realized that it was part of one of the Protectors.
"It didn't turn to goo. Maybe I can find something useful, if not I can bring it to Mercury and see what she can find out," Sun thought to herself as she bent to get a closer look at the object. Her head snapped up as the sounds of gunfire continued to echo throughout the street from somewhere. The gunfire moved away from where she was at, so she turned her attention back to the object at her feet.
Sun knelt closer to the remains of the Protector to examine it, she carefully scanned it with her senses in the hope of finding out something useful about her adversary. She was disappointed when her senses couldn't reveal anything helpful. Reaching down to turn it over, she froze in mid-movement as she noticed for the first time a red liquid that coated her right arm and flowed off her armored layer.
"What is this?" she thought as she looked dumbly at the dripping red liquid.
Red?
Blood?
"I don't remember anything getting through my armor shield," Sun thought as she stood up and examined herself closer. Upon finding no injury, she shrugged her shoulders and knelt again to examine the object of her interest.
Grabbing hold of the blackened lump, she began to roll it over and stopped as red liquid began to pour out from underneath, soaking the pavement. An awful odor rose of the lump and assaulted her nostrils, like the smell of burnt pork. This smell was different somehow, stronger and nastier.
Sun returned to rolling the mass over, "Man, I'm glad most of them turn to goo instead of this smelly lump of...," and was greeted by the tattered remains of a green uniform with a name stitched on one side and on the other side was badly torn revealing...
"Oh god!" she choked out as she released the lump allowing it to roll back into on its original side. Backing away from the body or what was left of it, she covered her mouth and forcibly pushed down the bile that was threatening to come up. She didn't stop backing away until she made contact with the wall behind her.
She stood there, frozen in horror and realized that it was parts and pieces of a human being that were surrounding her.
This was the first time she remembered seeing another human being dead.
Her mind recoiled at the scene.
"No! This can't be! No one is suppose to die," her mind screamed.
Breathing heavily, leaning against the wall and trying to keep what little contents of her stomach from coming up, she couldn't tear her eyes away from the grizzly remains before her. Her mind raced, getting nowhere fast. This only reinforce her earlier self evaluation. Her confidence shattered, harder than it did when she was disowned and living on the streets.
"It's my fault. If I wasn't so cocky," her mind screamed at her. "If I wasn't trying to act so damn... so damn... arrogant and listened to what my senses were telling me, none of this would've happened."
She sagged down the wall, coming to rest on her haunches. Going through all the attacks she could remember, she realized that everything, with the exception of her much toned down Solar Flare, was just too powerful to use. And even that she was hesitant to use. Burying her face in her hands, she lamented, "I'm worthless. Every attack I know is too powerful to use. I'm useless."
Thinking about that, and remembered the words of Sailor Pluto when she eavesdropped on the Scout meeting early in the week,
"... a super weapon, an ultimate weapon of mass destruction. So powerful is Sailor Sun that using her in such close quarters, like a planet or a moon, would have been just as dangerous as the invaders."
Ranma thought, "She's right. Every attack I know as Sailor Sun is... huge, devastating. Ridiculously so. " She sat there lost in self-doubt, "I'm too damn strong. No wonder they didn't use me in the war with the Negaverse - there would have been nothing left. I'm worse than useless."
Another part asserted itself, You are a soldier, a weapon of her majesty. Fighting, death and dying are a part of that."
Sun looked up from where her face was buried in her hands and blink-blinked. She felt a cold focus growing in her.
You are a soldier, you must fight. A voice from deep inside insisted.
"But I never..."
You have to. There is no one else who can deal with this new threat.
"I didn't want this..."
Sometimes there is no choice. Sometimes the choices are made for you. You are a soldier.
"I wasn't asked..."
You are a soldier. You are a weapon. You want everyone to end up like him?
".... no..."
Then get moving.
"Yes..."
Sun collected herself and pushed the horror see had just witnessed to the back of her mind where it wouldn't get in the way. She would deal with that later, after this was over with. She had to push it back, she couldn't think about it. Too much was at stake.
She rose from where she was crouched against the wall of the alley and tried not to think to much as she carefully stepped over the remains of the JDF soldier. A soldier who died defending this world from an invasion from a mistake by a long dead kingdom. She cleared the alley and looked about the street, more parts of the body (or was it bodies?) were strewn everywhere.
Gunfire was heard in the distance somewhere as the fighting moved away from the area she was at.
She stepped out of the alley, a soft padding sound was heard to her left. Turning toward the sound, her self resolve was almost shattered as a head of a nameless man rolled in her direction, like a ball.
She stood in shock, before leaning against another wall, trying desperately to get through this. She closed her eyes, with her head down and tried to refocused on what needed to be done. The image of the head rolling across the ground kept stopping her.
"I gotta keep moving, I can't let this stop me... I gotta focus and get back in the fight," she repeated as she opened her eyes.
"I can't deal with this now, I'll have to deal with it later, I have to!" Sun's thoughts screamed bitterly. She pushed the unpleasantness around her down into the depths of her mind, where she hoped in vain that it would never haunt her.
She was a solider, she strived to remember that...
... and she had a job to do.
A little paler, but a little more focused, she concentrated on the job at hand. Without further delay, she leapt back into the park.
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The ride to the aid station was short.
It wasn't very comfortable and not because of the crowded conditions of the bus. It was because Fumiki couldn't find Aki. She kept worrying, thinking in circular thoughts, "What could've happened? He was right there next to me? I should have stayed and looked for him..."
She had found the old lady that was sitting next to them but she was of little help, for she hadn't known anything either. She still stayed and looked after Fumiki, making sure she didn't get too distraught. It was helping, a bit.
"Thank you," Fumiki managed after they were on the road a while.
"You're welcome. I'm sorry, I never introduced myself. I'm Mrs. Takahashi," the old lady said with a thin smile, trying to comfort Fumiki.
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Things were going pretty badly. Jupiter tried her Thunder Crash and it seemed to stun the thing for all of five minutes. It stood there and wavered as if trying to decide to fall apart or not. Then suddenly it smacked Jupiter with some kind of energy attack of its own. Jupiter wasn't out, but it was clear she was hurting as she limped ran back to help.
She was lucky it was a glancing blow.
Mercury used her Bubbles Blast, hoping to confuse the Protector. Her efforts were ignored by the Protector as it once again launched another bolt of energy that Mercury evaded. Knowing she had little in the way of offensive capabilities, she withdrew to a safe distance. Once there, she brought out her computer and started studying the new threat.
The next up was Moon. Quickly powering up her tiara, she let it fly. The Protector was hit dead center. As the tiara sliced through it the things body, parts of it exploded into a slugde like the rest before. It did not fall, it stood there for a moment, then fired off another of its powerful attacks that Moon dodged. Barely.
It was at that time Sun returned from where ever she had been knocked and re-entered the fight.
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"Afternoon maam. Did ja hear what's happening in Juuban?" the diverly man asked, making small talk while stacking boxes of vegetables by the rear door.
"No, what?" the woman answered, disinterested.
"It's all over the news. There's some kind of monster invasion going on. The military is involved and so are the Sailor Scouts," he answered, hefting the last box and stacking it on top of the others.
"Sailor Scouts?"
"Yes, supposedly they are a bunch of magic girls that go around and fight monsters. I didn't believe in such nonsense until I saw them on the news. This is the first time they have been openly fighting and the first time they've been on TV," he said, handing the receipt for the woman to sign.
"Hmmmmm. Magic girls? This may bear looking into," the old woman replied while sighing.
"Well, that's all your order. See you in three days," the driver said, tipping his hat and turning to leave.
The old woman stood after the driver had left and pondered. Returning inside she shut the door and made her way to the TV sitting on one of the edges of the counter. Reaching up with a surprisingly steady hand for one her age, she turned the knob until it softly clicked.
What came on the screen amazed her.
With gleaming interest, Cologne watched the drama unfold before her.
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When she arrived back, the rest of the scouts were running interference against the large Protector that was moving in the direction of the wormhole and Saturn. The Scouts dodged and launched magical attacks that were slowing it, but none stopped it. Sun watched as Mars Flame Sniper connected with the right arm between the elbow and the wrist. It should have seared off the arm of the Protector. Instead, the thing only jerked the arm back as it passed through, leaving it whole and unscathed.
Sun thought about trying to go back into compressed time, but discarded that idea. Something about this Protector was interfering with her time field the same way the wormhole did. Not only that, her time field interfered with something in this Protector. She wasn't going to make any mistakes like she did earlier.
"I'm need to study the situation, no more of going off half cocked," Sun reminded herself as another thought crept into her consciousness, "that's how people die."
This time, she watched closely to see how this Protector was pulling this off. Taking her Solar Sword, Sun went to sever the thing's right leg above where the knee should be. Sun watched in fascination as the Protector's leg seem to flow around the sharp edge of the sword. The skin of the Protector opened at the leading edge only to reseal itself just behind where the cut was being made.
"Hmmmm. That's interesting," Sun thought just before she discovered how fast it could be. The Protector's arm swung around as it turned and lunged at Sun, who was prepared for any counter but barely evaded it.
"How can it move so fast? I don't detect any time disturbances from it," Sun thought dodging frantically, putting some distance between her and it. She was nearly caught off guard as it lunged at her again with incredible speed, she evaded it by dropping into a half crouch and side stepping. The momentum of its lunge carried it away from Sun. "Then again, I'm pretty fast too, without tampering with time."
As the Protector passed and the distance grew between them, Sun noticed that it seemed shifted slightly in reality.
She extended her senses to study the Protector on a level that no one else could. Sun truly examined her opponent for the first time to see how the Protector was pulling it off. The multiple warpages in space were really small wormholes that it projected parts of itself through, the whole thing was linked on a quantum level. It was really just a small part of the whole that was being projected into this space.
Pretty damn clever.
When Sun fought and damaged what was physically in this space, it was replaced immediately by other parts of itself from another space. It was like fighting an endless supply of fingers from a giant you couldn't see. The fact that each little wormhole was like a separate entity that was held together by one collective mind, made it like fighting a colony creature instead of one individual. Sun realized that the power requirements for this must be enormous.
You guys stay here and help Saturn, I'll deal with this thing! She yelled to the other Scouts, I need plenty of room to handle it, so keep everyone away.
Dodging and baiting the Protector, Sun soon was able to maneuver her oversized opponent into an open area away from everyone else. Looking around between dodges and checking with her senses of space, all was clear. Sun was pleased for once in finding that her and the Protector had managed to find themselves alone.
"I wonder how well it would resist a Solar Flare?" Sun thought, still leading the Protector deeper into the park.
She powered for her attack.
"Okay ugly, let's see you handle this," she said as a white-hot ball of plasma flew from her cupped hands.
The ball of plasma traversed the distance between Sailor Sun and the Protector almost instantly. The ground beneath the traveling ball of energy was either fused or vaporized in its wake of the much toned down Solar Flare. With a blinding flash and a roar of super-heated air, the Protector was engulfed by the powerful ball and was incinerated. Sun yelped out a cry of victory as the energy of her attack dissipated. The Protector was gone along with a fan shaped area of the park, about one hundred seventy feet long by one hundred feet at the widest. This area was reduced to a smoking, mass interspersed with melted and fused earth. The surrounding area outside the immediate cone of destruction was hissing and smoldering from the side effect of the heat. Of the Protector, there was nothing left.
Almost nothing.
Sun stopped her victory jig and mentally slapping herself for being so lax. "Idiot! That's how you got nailed the first time," she sternly thought to herself. Sun sighed and began moving closer to examine the spot where the Protector was standing. She could make out something glowing, being obscured here and there by the smoking ruins of the park.
"Residual energy maybe?" Sun though, trying to rationalize what she was seeing. She almost thought of ignoring it, but "No, I got careless before, and that costs lives." The image of the burnt and broken torso with part of a head filled her mind, she shook it off in revulsion.
"I gotta be sure," she thought as the gruesome image was once again pushed into the recesses of her mind, for later.
Approaching the area of disturbance, Sun cautiously made her way over. There was definitely something there, like glowing blue points of light. The way the lights were dancing about, they reminded her of lighting bugs at dusk in the summer. There didn't seem to be a pattern as she watched the lights flitter about. She got closer, ignoring the searing hot ground for she was well protected from such mundane threats. The lights were now beginning to move with a purpose, forming up along lines that were radiating outward from a larger point of blue light.
Suddenly the huge Protector was there again - with a popping sound - standing in the middled of seared earth. Not quite all of it Sun noticed, the majority of it was there but the extremities were still forming, oozing out from the points of blue light. As the pieces were oozing out, it looked as if the different parts were growing together and merging.
"Oh, crap," said an exasperated Sun.
Sailor Sun attacked again, this time with her fists out of frustration. She out flanked the quickly reforming Protector and attacked from the rear. Coming down hard the Protectors left side, that part seem to burst apart in a gory display of sludge that covered part of Sun's costume. She was real glad that her armored field sloughed it off, otherwise it would have been too gross.
"There, let's see what that did." she thought with satisfaction while quickly backing away, putting some distance between her and any counter attack. "That should have done somethi-"
The Protector slammed its fist into Sailor Sun, sending her flying in a straight line. Sun hit the low wall bordering the park, which arrested her flight for brief moment before succumbing, falling into rumble. Flipping head over heels she crashed into something even harder and came to rest.
"-ing," she finished her thought, while shaking her head clear of the little birdies that were suddenly flying around her head. Sun sat up and looked at what she landed up against.
A tank. A very large tank. Looking up, she noticed that she had actually dented the heavy armor that protected the top part of the treads. A mechanical sound was heard as she saw a cylindrical object moving against the blue sky. The barrel stopped directly above her. The gun of the tank aimed in the direction of the park and she followed the line of travel and saw the Protector standing across the wide avenue among the rumble of the wall she was just knocked through.
Sailor Sun almost crapped in her pants when the gun fired.
The projectile struck the Protector square in the chest and detonated. When the smoke cleared, it was standing where it was, with a hole in the center that was closing up and filling. It raised a glowing arm, aimed at the tank and Sailor Sun.
"Oh shit," was Sun only comment as she leapt to her feet. She quickly poured power and expanded her armor field to cover both herself and the tank.
The Protector fired.
The ball of fire was impressive as it struck Sun's armor field. It looked like a waves of light crashing against the rocks of Sun's jagged armor. The glow of the attack seem to hang in the air, sending tendrils of energy that tried to work their way through the field that was protecting her and the tank. Some did reach her, painfully.
She gritted her teeth and bore it.
"It's finding away around my armor. It's finding a way to... counter the frequency?" was the answer out of nowhere.
The attack passed, she searched her mind for a counter, and was distracted for a moment by the sound of someone screaming for a medic. Looking around she realized she protected herself, the tank and some of the surrounding area. But not much more. There were men around and behind the tank, many were protected by her field. Those that were partially were wounded and on the ground, others that weren't...
... were burnt and broken,...
... Sun didn't want to think about that.
Not now. Later.
"There's gotta be a way for me to get an edge. I can't use my compressed time around that thing... wait!" she mentally slapped herself.
She concentrated on the space in front of the Protector, who arm was glowing, gearing up for another shot - and folded space.
The Protector was the one caught off guard this time by this move. Fighting the slight dizziness after folding space, Sun slammed into the Protector carrying them both back into the park. She struck it over and over again, some hits flowed harmlessly around the mass, the majority were connecting, turning what she hit with into sludge. She had the Protector on its back, with her atop it, pounding it into the ground. A glowing fist filled her vision.
"Oh sh-" she didn't complete her statement as her world went black.
Coming to only seconds later with the sensation of air rushing by her, Sun opened her eyes to find herself flying straight up with a very sore jaw. Instinctively using her warp bubbles, she halted her ascent and hovered in the air. Looking below her at the ground, maybe a good three hundred feet down, the Protector was busy reforming the destroyed parts of its body.
"How in the hell do I stop something like that?" Sun thought as she felt sweat flow down the side of her face, before rephrasing her thought "How in the hell do I stop this thing?
Sun was beyond frustrated. She had been going all out, or as all out as she could go without destroying a wide area, if not all of Japan, and still this thing kept coming. She wondered how someone like her with the power to lay waste the Solar System, could not have the right kind of power to defeat this thing. She tried slashing, blasting, burning and generally beating the hell out of the Protector but it kept renewing itself and getting some good jabs in between to boot. She knew it was only going to be a matter of time before she'd make a mistake.
"Damn it!" she thought, "I'm so out of practice! All I've done for months is practice moves and katas! Play with my powers as if they were new toys! I haven't sparred with anyone in lord knows how long and now I'm paying the price."
Sweat tickled the side of her face as she watched the Protector finish reforming itself and begin to move in the direction of the wormhole.
"I gotta think, I gotta think," she repeated in her mind.
The flow of sweat t beaded at her chin. "There's gotta be a way, there's just gotta be a way to beat this thing," she thought, wiping the sweat from her face with the back of her hand. Something didn't feel right. She looked at the back of her hand.
Not sweat, blood.
Her blood.
That thing had managed to crash through some of her armor fields enough to draw blood.
Red.
Blood.
An image of a man's severed head filled her mind.
Sun shook her head with revulsion trying to shake the image and once again pushed it to the back of her consciousness.
For later.
"No! I can't think about that! I gotta concentrate on what I'm doing," she ranted to herself. Taking a deep breath, trying to calm herself - it failed. She felt the frustration of her ineffectiveness fill her with anger, making her feel...
Worthless! You are worthless...
"I am not worthless! More people are going to die unless I stop this thing," the anger grew.
You are dishonorable...
"I am not! I will stop that thing, if it's the last thing I do," anger couple with frustration.
You are weak...
"I will not see anymore deaths from these Protectors..." rational thought left as rage filled her, "... I will destroy them all."
You are a coward...
Sailor Sun saw red. "I am..."
This time it wasn't blood. "... not..."
The anger built up and Sun closed her eyes embracing more of the magic within, notching her power up to another level. The effect was immediate. Sailor Sun's skin took on an "orange peal" look as it glowed and moved with on its own with power. Flames of energy then burst from her being here and there only to encounter the warp fields that drew them back to herself again. At the same time a corona of power exploded from her body making the warp bubbles almost visible to the naked eye. Sailor Sun looked just like the living representation of her namesake. She opened her eyes to reveal two mini blue stars shining, set in her beautiful face. The feathered wings made of flame that sprung from her back completed the picture.
"... a coward!"
Super Sailor Sun hung in mid air above the park.
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Fumiki walked wearily from the medical tent at the aid station where she was examined for any injuries from her earlier ordeal, She asked around for anyone who could have seen Aki, but no one knew anything.
"Maybe he's looking for me? I should head home, just in case," she thought.
She attempted to leave, but was directed to stay by a firm looking soldier.
"Please Miss, you don't need to be going back to that mess, besides you won't be able to get near there before being turned back," he said gently, yet with a determined undertone.
Fumiki sighed and resigned herself to waiting. Suddenly, she was distracted by a bright light in the sky over in the direction of Juuban.
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Cologne watched the battle with great interest, puzzling something in her mind. After a moment she hopped over to the TV and examined the images closely. Her eyes narrowed before she backed away from the screen. Pogoing away on her staff, she returned to the kitchen with a thick volume. Quickly, but carefully leafing through the book, she stopped here and there, tracing a thin withered finger down the passages.
"So they may exist!" she said excitedly.
"Who, great grandmother?" Shampoo asked, while looking between the events on the TV and Cologne.
"There is an ancient legend that a group of woman warriors, chosen among the best and brightest of the Amazons, were blessed with powers greater than any mortal by the goddess. They were trained to fight demons and any great evil that may threaten this world. I believe that these are either them or their descendants."
"How can you be sure, elder?"
"I am not. Let us watch and see. If they are what I hope, if they are the warriors of legend, then they will reveal themselves by the way they fight."
Two sets of eyes turned and watched the events unfold on the screen.
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Sailor Sun's wings spread out, stretched to their full length as she drew power from the fabric of space/time around her. She was very, very pissed. One thing was on her mind: the destruction of the Protector that threatened the very existence of all she held dear. She narrowed the twin blue light that were her eyes and mentally went through a menu of different attacks. There were many listed mentally and she chose one that would be guaranteed to end this fight. She prepared her attack.
"This will kill that bastard," Sun thought aloud as she gathered the energies between her hands. Her wings flared as more power was drawn through through them and into Sun's body. She could feel the fabric of space and the power it contains concentrate within her while being focused by her will alone.
Sailor Sun's name was misdirection.She didn't get her power from the Sun, but from something far greater.
In the space between her cupped hands, a marble-sized brilliant concentration of light formed and swirled. Space warped between her slender fingers as a bubble formed there, she moved the marble slightly out of phase with this space and concentrated more matter and energy there.
"Let's see how that bastard handles a couple of solar masses of concentrated energy, the son of a bitch," Sun snarled as blood from the cut flowed past her mouth. The pinprick of energy in her hands glowed brighter and grew to tennis ball size.
Alarm bells rang in the back of her head.
And for once Sun heeded the alarms in her mind.
"Wait. A couple solar masses?" a rational part of her mind asserted, "Two solar masses?" it then screamed.
Sun's eyes blink-blinked.
The energy that had been gathering between her hands was banished from where it came from safely.
"What in the hell was I thinking?" she berated herself. "First I go off half cocked, thinking that nothing could touch me which probably resulted in... many deaths," the grisly images filled her mind again and she shuddered at the memory, "and now I'm going to kill one... one thing with an attack that would vaporize the planet. What in the hell is wrong with me?"
Sun hung in mid-air, clearing her mind and focusing it, "I'm getting too emotional, I'm reacting instead of acting."
More unpleasant images tried to invade her mind, she shook these off.
Sun looked down at her opponent as it made its way in the direction of the wormhole and Saturn, "At least it can't fly or it would have taken advantage of... knocking me out." Turning her mind over to the problem of beating this thing she thought, " I have to figure out a way to stop it from renewing itself through the wormholes."
Seeing the Protector pick up the pace and approach the wormhole, she thought "But, first I have to keep it away from Saturn."
When Sun made it back down, the giant Protector was almost on top of Saturn in spite of the amount of pounding it was receiving from the other scouts. Saturn for her part was still maintaining the Silence Wall even though she was clearly distressed. Soaring from the sky with outstretched wings, Sun gathered the Protector in her arms and flew away. The Protector squirmed and twisted in her grasp then landed another good blow to her ribcage forcing Sun to drop it on the far side of the park.
The blow was hard and it hurt even though Sun's armored field was holding up. Somehow her enemy had found a way or at least a partial way around her protective field. Sun was calmer than she was when she first got hit in the jaw and decided not to rush into battle now that she had taken the pressure off those guarding the wormhole.
She backed off a bit and began sizing her enemy up, it stood there and seemed to be doing the same. Sun moved her wings behind her as they fluttered in the gentle breeze. For some weird reason she took the time to take in how lovely the color of the turning trees were, a strange thing to be thinking in the middle of a life and death struggle. Maybe it was because she wanted to grasp something in her mind that was beautiful in an ugly situation.
Or maybe she wanted to remember something of beauty, to push what she had seen earlier further into the back of her mind.
Sun decided on a course of action, she was going to feel the enemy out. She was going to try to find out what it can and couldn't do, for all she knew trying to kill it with a Solar Flare may have made it more powerful.
"Gotta keep it here, I gotta keep it busy," she thought as she suddenly charged and moved in chestnut speed toward her foe.
The Protector just stood there as Sun attacked. It did not dodge, or seem to need to. Sun noticed as she closed in for her attack that instead of dodging or taking any sort of evasive maneuvers, the Protector just shifted in reality a bit. Sun's punches were literally flowing around the mass that made up her opponent and really didn't seem to connect in spite of the fact that there was no way for her to miss. The Protector on the other hand had no problems getting to her as a few glancing blows proved to Sun. She leapt away, analyzing the situation.
"It's adapting to my moves, countering them. No! It's adapting to my use of space," she realized.
Thinking of a course of action, she continued to ponder.
"Okay, psychical strength is useless," she thought. "Even if I connected, it would just reform itself."
Dodging a ball of plasma launched by her opponent, "I can't cut it's power off - it is out of reach."
Twist, parry, dodge.
All this added up to was the fact Ranma couldn't defeat this thing with brute force. That meant that she had to, God help her, outsmart it.
Thinking back to what Dr. Ikari said earlier, about mass and wormholes. Maybe... gravity?
Her eyes narrowed as she came up with a plan of attack. To be to be sure nothing else was affected, she would use her fields and get close.
Once again leaping into battle, Sun used her wings to suddenly change direction and come in from the thing's right flank. Splitting her warp bubble that controlled gravity in two, she extended the inner one to encompass the Protector and herself, the outer one as a barrier between them and the outside world. She then fed power to the inner one.
A circular area around Sun compressed and fused under its own weight.
The Protector must have sensed something because it tried to leap out of harms way and nearly succeeded. It was a little too late as its right arm suddenly collapsed into itself between the elbow and the shoulder. It gave out what can only be described as a high pitched screech of pain, weird since it had no mouth. The Protector's arm imploded inward into tiny blue motes of light. The tiny wormholes wavered and then collapsed upon themselves. The protector's warp field fluctuated and died at that part of its body as well.
There would be no reopening of those wormholes.
Sun would have given a victory cry it it wasn't for the fact that she was eating dirt at the time. The Protector managed to power up its other arm, build up some kind of energy in its hand and release it right into Sun's left side. As Sun picked herself off the ground, her whole left side felt as if it were on fire. Gently feeling that side of her body with her uninjured hand, she pressed carefully. Sun ground her teeth in pain as she discovered to her dismay that at least one maybe two ribs were broken.
Something was automatically shifting magic or power or something she didn't have a term for to the injured area, stabilizing it and easing the pain. She willed more of this force into the injury to try to stabilize the injury faster and speed up recovery. The Protector had other things in mind, it stood there and wavered around a bit.
Sun watched, holding her side, through the easing pain as senses told her that he Protector was redirecting other wormholes from other parts of its being to replace the missing arm. It took quite a few because with each redirection the overall size of the Protector shrank.
"Must be because the arm and hand has so many joints," Sun thought to herself offhandedly, remembering something That Dr. Tofu mentioned when he once mended her busted hand.
As if sensing Sun's condition it went on the offensive...
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Sailor Moon worriedly moved toward Saturn who was still maintaining the Silence Wall. On the other side there were many of the invading force pressing up against it. Some of the Protectors were using some kind of energy beam against part of the wall, weakening it at the point of contact.
"How are you holding up?" Moon asked carefully so as not to break the young Senshi's concentration.
Saturn sighed heavily and wearily shook her sweaty head, "I'm getting tired."
Moon thought for a second before looking around, "Mars, Mercury. Go find Sun. Tell her to come right away."
The two Senshi nodded and took off in opposite directions, looking for where Sun was battling the Protector.
"The rest of you get ready, we might have to hold off the Protectors until Sun gets here," she said the the rest of the group, while thinking, "and where in the heck is Pluto?"
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It became clearer to Ranma that this was not a fight she could win by brawn but by brains.
Trying to use her gravity field to attack was proving frustrating as the Protector was extra cautious when grappling with her. It seemed like every time she tried to send any power to that field the Protector would back off suddenly. It was not falling for the same trick twice. It did, however, give her some breathing room when she started to feel hard pressed.
Ranma circled the giant Protector and began fighting it using nothing but her martial arts skill, hoping to distract it with her physical attacks enough to trap it within her gravity field. She jabbed hits and threw ki balls there while dodging and weaving around any of the punches or energy blasts the thing was throwing her way. She wasn't able to muster any confidence for any Moko Takabishas. After about ten minutes of this she broke away, putting a little distance between her and it.
"This is no good," Ranma thought. Pressing her hand against her still tender left side, she winced, "It's only a matter of time before it gets lucky. Every time I extend my gravity field, it senses it and backs off. My ki attacks just bounce off or just goes through it. But how I defeat it without destroying everything else in the process?"
Ranma dodged another energy blast sent her way. She was fast running out of ideals. "Think dammit! Think! There's gotta be something I'm overlooking. I even if I hit it with a low power Solar Flare it would... it just keeps regenerating and anything more I do would destroy everything." Ranma thought a moment. "That's it! I gotta change the rules."
A plan formed in her mind. It may not be a very good plan, but it was something that she was sure of that the Protector would never suspect. Twisting to avoid a strike, she spied Mercury rushing forward, stopping at the edge of the open area.
"Sun! Saturn can't hold out much longer!" Mercury called over.
"Stay back, I can handle this!" Sun yelled over to Mercury.
With that Ranma renewed her attack, keeping the Protector at bay while baiting it at the same time. "I won't even have to rely on this things ki, I can create my own hot and cold."
Channeling power to her right side of her body and generating heat that way, she then concentrated her "Soul of Ice" into her left. She led the Protector into a spiral pattern by continuing to bait it with jabs and letting it come within a hairs breadth of hitting her. She knew it was going to be trickier once the spiral got tighter, but she would have to deal with that the best she could.
She only hoped that this thing didn't know any Amazon techniques.
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Mars rushed up to where Mercury was, "We've got to help her."
"No. She asked us to stay out of it," Mercury replied, studying her computer screen.
"Can you see what Sun's doing?" Mars asked while observing the battling shapes.
"Nope. Not a thing," Mercury said, then added, "This is strange."
"What?"
"Sun is letting off different temperatures... I hope she's alright."
"What does it mean?"
"I'm not sure... but something subtle is happening. I just don't understand what." Mercury queried the computer, looking for answers.
Silence.
"How long can Saturn hold off the main force?" Mercury asked.
"Not too much longer, she's getting tired. Moon sent us to tell Sun to hurry up," Mars said.
"Tell her she's busy."
There was a scream from the field, "Dragon's Heaven's-Blast!"
"What in the heck is that?!" Mars exclaimed.
In the middle of the park, the wind picked up the gentle breeze to a gale force in an instant. A whirlwind formed then exploded into a tornado with Sun standing at the center with an arm extended into the sky. Her clothes and skirt were blown around giving nose-bleed quality views of under Sun's skirt if any teenage boy were present. The Protector was blown off its feet and carried high into the sky.
Sun summoned her sword.
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Finding Mrs. Takahashi, Fumiki sat beside her and fidgeted.
"No luck?" the elderly woman asked softly.
"No, and they won't let anyone leave. So I can't even look for him."
"It wouldn't be a good idea to look for him anyway. When this is over with, let him look for you."
"I just wish I knew if he's was alright."
"And I'm sure he's thinking the same thing about you."
Fumiki sat beside Takahashi, sighed and resumed her wait.
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"They must be Amazons!" Cologne declared.
"What you mean?" Shampoo asked, confused.
Cologne rolled her eyes, would Shampoo ever learn?
"Watch and learn," she replied tiredly while motioning towards the screen with her cane. "That one there looks like she is setting up for a..."
A image of a tornado filled the screen.
"... I knew it!" Cologne declared. "An Amazon technique. Only Amazons would know how to do the Dragon's Heaven-Blast."
Shampoo studied the screen, silently contemplating the events as she saw them.
"Great-grandmother, could magic girl be husband? You taught him that to beat perverted master," Shampoo reasoned.
Cologne shook her head slowly, "No, no, no child," she gently chided, "These warriors that were blessed by the goddess were true women of the Amazons. You husband may be many things, but a true woman he is not."
"Yes great-grandmother, but could it be possible that..." Shampoo began.
"No." Cologne said firmly, perhaps more than she wanted. "Only females were blessed with the power. Legend said only one male was blessed, but like all other males he wasn't much of a fighter. He was merely a consort of one of the blessed. Do you see a magic male fighting?"
She paused to gather herself and to allow Shampoo time to answer.
"No, elder."
"That's because fighting is a woman's job. I am not saying that your husband is not a fighter, he is exceptional. But he is a male - and in a serious battle they would be lost."
"Shampoo see..."
"Good. Maybe one day we'll take a trip and seek them out." Cologne thought a bit, We would have to be very careful if we do. As one's blessed by the goddess, we must be careful as to not to offend them.
Shampoo understand. What we do now?
"First, we must investigate the reports of a male claiming to be Ranma Saotome. He roughly fits the description, if he is not Ranma then he can be persuaded to tell us what he knows. In any case your husband will eventually come back, after all we have something he wants."
Both woman smiled at this.
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Sun's plan worked wonderfully. Caught off guard, the Protector was taken for a ride, high into the sky. She had to balance the power she put into her attack, she didn't want it to fall apart and regenerate before she had a chance to make her move. As the Protector rose higher and higher the high winds that supported it died. It hung in the air for an instant before falling to earth.
With her sword in hand, Sun stood firm below it as the winds still buffeted the area surrounding her. She smiled as she saw that the Protector would fall right where she was standing. Taking her sword, Sun slashed at the ground between her legs. Dirt was kicked up and sent flying into the air. She looked up at the falling Protector, as she planted both feet firmly in the ground.
Calculating carefully, Sun watched as the large Protector fall like a stone. She felt her timing had to be perfect. She knew that this thing would never give her a second chance.
Watching it grow in her field of vision, Sun held her Sword at the ready and prepared for her move. She could tell by the way the thing was positioning itself it was readying an attack of it own, its good arm glowing with power. Glancing down to check her footing, she hoped this would work the way she figured. She sensed that the Protector was almost on top of her.
"She'll be crushed!" Mars cried.
"No. She's up to something," Mercury said calmly while looking at her computer.
Putting power into her spatial field, Ranma picked a point about thirty feet from where she was. Knowing that the Protector was on top of her, Sun's body dipped suddenly toward the earth as she did the splits forcing the rent in space/time that she had made with her sword wider with her legs. She then moved out of the way by folding space.
Forcing herself to overcome the dizziness, she quickly turned just in time to see the Protector connect its energy laden fist to her after image, which it passed through. The Protector appeared to fall through to the ground and disappear. Quickly regaining her feet, Sun compressed time successfully, for her field had stabilized during the fight, and rushed to the rift she had created. She dove after the Protector and taking her sword, she sealed rent in space/time behind her.
Mercury and Mars were alone in the field, wondering what happened.
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A thin line glowed in the middle of nowhere and suddenly widened. A large ball of brilliant light shot through, followed by a large figure in the shape of a headless man. The Protector tried to stop its forward movement, but didn't have anything to push against. Its shape expanded in the unexpected vacuum, making it look more grotesque than before.
Space is like that.
The Protector was followed by a red-headed, teal dressed girl with wings made of feathered flame. She had no problems maneuvering, for here she was in her element.
As the Protector tumbled helplessly, Sun sealed the rift behind her just in case she failed. It would make going back impossible for the Protector, unless it had more tricks up its sleeve than she figured. Moving to normal time, she turned her full attention the destruction of the enemy.
The Protector continued unchecked as it flailed its limbs about, trying to affect its trajectory in some way. Unlike Sun, it was not designed to operate in space so it's efforts were in vain. Sun mentally went through her list of attacks and discarded all the mid and high end ones. She quickly settled on one she used back on the park, there would be no dodging or retreating from the Protector this time.
Effortlessly, Sun caught up to the spinning figure of the Protector and split and expanded her gravity fields. The Protector sensing it's peril, flailed about even more, as desperately tried to get away. Sun would see to it that it would not succeed.
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"Where did they go?" Mars asked, slightly panicked.
"I'm not sure," Mercury responded absent mindedly while studying the read out on her screen. "She opened some kind of gateway - it's very unclear about what happened."
"She'll be back, won't she?"
Mercury shook her head, "I don't know."
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With the outer field in place and the inner one encompassing the Protector, Sun fed her gravity field power. A lot of power.
The Protectors that was inflated from the vacuum, suddenly collapsed in on itself. It took on the appearance of blue dots strung together by flesh-colored lines. The lines then faded into nothing leaving the blue dots behind. The blue lights, that were the mini wormholes, wavered and winked out one by one. The warp field that outlined the form the the Protector pulsed and died away to nothing.
All that was left was a slightly larger wormhole that was at the heart of the Protector, it had defied her efforts to implode. As she poured more power into her field, she could sense the resistance in this one as it fought to stay in existence. Raising an eyebrow, Sun held her gravity field at the level it was at and concentrated on a spot between her fingers.
"Well if mass would naturally collapse a wormhole like the good doctor said, maybe a little push is all that's needed," she thought to herself.
A transparent bubble formed between her widely sprayed fingers, a intense pinprick of light formed there. She smiled as it reached five solar masses, "Let's see if it can swallow this."
She launched the tiny ball of light into the small fist-size wormhole. It entered the wormhole and drew it into itself in a way that reminded her on water going down a drain. Without fanfare, the wormhole winked out of existence, taking the massive speck with it.
Good thing she did that here instead of back home she thought. That little speck had enough mass that it would've taken the Earth with it. Dropping her gravity fields, Sun extended her senses and exhaled a sigh of relief as she found no trace her foe.
Relaxing a bit from the fight, she turned and looked about her. Sun was treated to a grand view of the Milk Way as it filled her vision it all it's glory. Looking out upon the great spiral galaxy, she admired the long arms filled with stars and gas clouds. She traced the arms as they spiraled inward toward the bright oval center that was the heart of the entire galaxy.
And the true heart of her power.
She suddenly felt very small. Studying one star filled arm in particular, she instinctively picked out a tiny, insignificant dot that she knew was her home.
She summoned her sword again and opened the way there.
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"What are we going to tell Moon?" Mars asked, exasperated at the whole situation.
"I don't know. I don't know for sure what happened, I don't know for sure where she went, I don't know when she'll be back, I don't know. Okay?" Mercury said with equal exasperation in her voice.
Mercury took a deep breath, calmed herself and said "Look, why don't you head back just in case your needed. I'll stay here just in case Sun comes back and tell her the situation. We'll join you there."
Mars nodded and was about to take off when a slit opened in the air before them, and out stepped Sailor Sun.
"Sun! What happened to that thing?" Mercury asked as she ran up to Sun.
Sun collected herself from her excursion beyond the galaxy and said, "I couldn't figure out how to beat it here without... well, destroying everything. So I changed the rules."
"Changed the rules?" Mercury questioned.
"Er, yeah. You see, I couldn't beat it here without endangering everyone. Every Senshi attack I know is too damn powerful. So I took it about 100,000 light years from here, out in the middle of nowhere." Sun said while shrugging her shoulders. "It was all I could think of to do. I dealt with it there and came back."
Before Mercury could congratulate Sun on her victory, Mars interrupted, "Moon said to hurry. Saturn is getting tired."
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The three scouts hurried over to where Saturn was still holding the Silence Wall over the mouth of the wormhole. She looked tired and on the verge of collapse from holding the wall against so many attacks from the other side.
"When I give you the word, you drop the wall and hit the dirt. Got it?" Sun said firmly.
"What are you- " Uranus started to say.
"Everyone get behind me. Ready Saturn?"
Saturn nodded.
Sun spread her wings protectively in front of the Senshi as she extended her armor field over Saturn.
"NOW!"
Saturn dropped her Silence Wall and kissed the ground as Sun's body flared and exploded into flame. She didn't need to, but she cried out her attack, "Solar Flare!"
A continuous column of light burst from her outstretched hands as the Solar Flare erupted and filled the wormhole with its energies. The shielding that Sun erected protected the other scouts around her as the ground around the wormhole smoked and burst into flames from just being near the power output of the attack. Even though the scouts behind Sun were shaded by her wings, the light penetrated through them, stinging their eyes. Saturn was not aware of this, as she had her head covered and her face planted firmly in the ground. The power Sun was putting into this attack would have been deadly for any normal person near it.
The wormhole still was there when everyone eyes cleared from the intense light show. The ground and surrounding area was smoldering with the signs of Sun's power.
"Did you get them all?" Mercury asked Sun as her and Moon stood behind her. Uranus and Neptune rushed over to Saturn, checking for any injuries. After confirming that Saturn wasn't hurt and didn't even feel the heat of Sun's attack as it passed over her, they rejoined the rest of the Senshi as they gathered before the wormhole. Sun turned to face Mercury and Moon as she shrugged her shoulders and drew her wings in.
"No," Pluto said as she appeared out of nowhere. "There is a whole pocket universe filled with these things."
"EEEEEK!Whyintheheckdoyoualwaysdothat?Can'tyougivemesomewarning?!Youscaredtheheckouttame!" Moon squeaked as she jumped behind Sun.
"I wondered when you would show up," Sun said tartly to Pluto.
"I was monitoring the effects of the fight. You succeeded in delaying them for about one hundred sixty years," Pluto said, ignoring the Sun's tone.
"They're going to keep coming, aren't they?" Sun asked.
Pluto nodded, "Yes and each time more aggressive and cunning than before."
"Great, just great," Sun said exasperated.
"What's the matter? We won, didn't we?" Venus asked.
"No we didn't win. We just delayed them. They'll be back and according to Pluto in about a hundred years and fifty years," Sun replied.
"One hundred and sixty," Pluto corrected.
"Whatever," Sun shot tiredly as she rubbed her temples and looked up at Pluto, "You knew it would come to this, didn't you?"
"Not for sure, but I did have hopes. I didn't foresee the Protector you fought. I did know that the First Enemy would have to be dealt with once and for all. It is either going to be us or them in the end, and I knew that only you were the only one who could finish this."
Sun sighed and looked at the ground before looking up at Pluto again. "It'll get messy on the other end. Can you keep the wormhole open from this end so I can find my way back?" she finally asked.
Pluto nodded.
"Do it," Ranma said, in a slightly commanding voice.
"Where are you... You're not thinking of going there are-" Moon began to ask.
Sun had already folded her wings tighter and dove into the swirling blue wormhole and was gone.
" ... "
"Now that she is gone we must remove her as a threat by sealing the wormhole to prevent her from returning," Pluto said casually as she powered up for the "Dead Scream" against the equipment stabilizing the wormhole.
Silence.
"WHAT!?" the other eight Senshi screamed.
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