Green Eyed Monster
Chapter 11: "Showdown"
A Sailor Moon fanfic
By Bill K.
Rei led them to the right of the botanical garden, down a stone path toward a grove of cherry trees. The others followed, casting wary glances around them in anticipation of an attack.
"Hold it," Rei said, stopping suddenly. "It's close. Can you feel it, Sailor Moon?"
Without warning, Tuxedo Mask whirled around, brandishing his walking stick. The others turned at the sudden motion. To their horror, they found Sailor Moon on her knees, grimacing and clutching at her throat.
Rei gasped. In seconds she had one of her wards out, ready to energize it. But Tuxedo Mask was faster. Lunging forward, he swung his walking stick like a baseball bat at the demonic presence hovering over Sailor Moon and contaminating her life essence. The stick connected with the demon and sent it flying. Sailor Moon collapsed to the ground, with Sailor Mercury instantly by her side.
"Sailor Moon!" Mercury gasped. "Can you speak to me?"
Sailor Moon coughed violently, gasping for breath. She struggled for several tense moments as Venus and Jupiter fanned out to protect her. Finally she recovered enough to wave her hand dismissively.
"Are you hurt?" Mercury persisted.
"Couldn't breathe," Sailor Moon croaked out. "Mamo-chan . . .!"
"I'm here," Tuxedo Mask said, kneeling down and grasping her hand. Mercury detected a faint golden glow around the clasped hands, one she'd never noticed before. Sailor Moon's tension seemed to ease.
"Just give me a few minutes," Sailor Moon whispered. "I'll be all right."
During this time, Rei had finished charging her ward. Instantly she launched it, hoping to catch the demon while it was still stunned from Tuxedo Mask's blow. But the demon lurched aside at the last instant and the ward missed its target. Recovering quickly, the demon flew up into the air, then suddenly changed direction and dived directly at Rei.
"Venus Love Me Chain!" Venus snarled even as Rei produced another ward.
The golden links shot out and snared the demon as it sped toward Rei on a kamikaze run. Instantly Venus jerked on the chain and yanked the demon off course. Frustrated, the demon flexed its bat-like wings and tried to climb.
"Hold it steady, Venus!" Jupiter shouted. "Jupiter! Oak Evolution!"
Electrical bursts exploded around the chained demon. It howled in agony, fighting to climb into the air the entire time. Venus struggled to keep the demon tethered while Rei charged another ward.
"Jupe!" yelled Venus, straining to hold the chain.
"I'm trying to stun it!" Jupiter protested.
"Well you're only making it mad!" Venus retorted.
A sudden lunge of the demon ripped Venus off of her feet. She slammed into Rei and both women tumbled into a heap. The chain dissolved and the demon shot up into the sky.
"Damn it!" spat Venus. Reluctantly she glanced at Rei. "Sorry I couldn't hold it."
"You did what you could," Rei replied tersely. "Thanks for the save."
"Thank me after we get this thing," Venus said, equally tersely.
"Supreme Thunder!" Jupiter roared. A lightning bolt launched into the air, narrowly missing the swerving demon.
"Mercury! Aqua Rhapsody!" Mercury shouted out and a gusher of icy water shot at the flying demon. "Jupiter! Launch an electrical burst into my water attack! The cold and water will super-conduct the energy!"
"Nice!" Jupiter grinned. "Sparkling Wide Pressure!"
When the electrical burst struck the surging ice water, it sparked and spat angrily like a raging beast. Though the demon once again managed to avoid the water burst, turbulent arcs from it snapped and bit, catching it in a glancing blow. The demon tumbled away and spun to Earth.
"Venus!" Venus shouted, crouched and aiming at the descending demon. "Love And Beauty Shock!"
The energy shockwave met the demon at the precise point it struck the ground. The beast was tossed back up into the air, roaring in wounded defiance. As it reached the apex of its ascent, the demon suddenly flinched and contracted into a ball. Then it went limp and tumbled back to the ground, landing hard. Sticking out of its chest was a red rose.
"Hold it down!" Rei yelled, pursuing Venus and Jupiter as they ran for the downed demon. Mercury trailed them all. "Hold it down long enough for me to bind it!"
Jupiter arrived first with Venus at her heels. The two senshi sank to their knees around the fallen demon and clamped down on it with their gloved hands to pin it to the turf. Though the touch of the demon was cold and alien, making each woman's skin crawl, neither one let go. Feeling them upon it, Meshiwokuu Eiji began to thrash beneath their grip.
"BEHAVE!" Jupiter snapped. The lightning rod extended from her tiara crackled with menace.
"Boy, Akiko better never mess up around you," Venus jabbed. Jupiter glanced, caught the wicked smile on Venus and returned it.
At once the two senshi felt themselves sinking. Looking down, they saw the demon lowering into the ground itself, its body immaterial enough to pass into the earth itself.
"Sparkling Wide Pressure!" Jupiter shouted. Venus just had time to whip her hands away before the entire area became electrified. But the demon continued to slip into the ground until nothing was left but the rose from Tuxedo Mask sticking stem first in the turf.
"Damn it, he got away!" roared Venus, looking around frantically for some trace of it.
"Not yet it didn't," Rei growled.
Her eyes snapped shut and her hands pressed to her temples, the priest began mentally tracing the demon's path. It was difficult, because her connection to the demon wasn't direct like Usagi's. But she could detect a definite path under the ground.
"Maybe I can hamper its escape!" Mercury shouted. "Shine Aqua Illusion!"
Mercury aimed her power directly at the ground. Water blanketed the immediate area, soaked into the ground and immediately froze. Hopefully she and the others looked to Rei.
But Rei was oblivious to them. She pointed down to the ground, tracing a path in the air with her finger. The path was already past where Mercury had frozen the ground.
"I've got it," Rei said vacantly, tracing all the while. "It's - - it's over here." Then she corrected her indication. "No, here! No . . .!"
"It's there," Sailor Moon said, pointing at a spot down and to the left of where Rei indicated. "It's surfacing."
Moments later the demon passed through the ground and soared up into the air. It didn't get far, though. A mighty leap from Tuxedo Mask brought him right up to the demon. The demon tried raking at Tuxedo Mask with its wings, but his walking stick and cape deflected each blow. Tuxedo Mask let fly with a rose. The stem of the rose tore across the demon's shoulder. The demon howled and swerved in mid-air to escape, but Tuxedo Mask seized its shoulders and tried to force it down.
"I don't get it!" Venus exclaimed as everyone watched Tuxedo Mask from below. "Why doesn't it just go immaterial again?"
"Perhaps it can't, due to the necessary energy expenditure," reasoned Mercury.
As the pair in the sky headed for earth, the demon managed to shake loose from Tuxedo Mask and arc up into the sky again.
"Venus Love Me Chain!" Venus called out. Another chain shot up into the sky and snagged the demon's vapor trail. Amazingly the vapor trail was corporeal enough for the chain to wrap around it. Venus tugged and pulled the demon down, but it slipped the chain before it impacted.
"We need a plan!" Mercury asserted. "As it is, we're just reacting!"
"Got any suggestions?" Jupiter asked, always willing to listen to anything Mercury proposed.
"We need to surround it somehow," Mercury said, clicking her visor into place. "If we can surround it and herd it toward Rei, she can bind it." Mercury clicked the visor off. "This is useless. All my visor is registering is electro-magnetic energy."
"What happens if it tries to fly off?" Venus queried.
"Jupiter will have to use her Oak Evolution!" Mercury proclaimed, then turned to Jupiter. "Aim the attack above the demon. Try to fan it out so that it acts as a ceiling."
"You got it, Mercury," Jupiter nodded grimly. With that, the other two senshi fanned out to try to flank the demon.
"Should I help?" Sailor Moon yelled, now fully recovered.
"No!" Rei yelled back. "Don't come near it! It could attack you again!"
Sailor Moon was visibly disappointed, but obeyed.
With the senshi and Tuxedo Mask surrounding its flanks, the demon immediately headed upward.
"Jupiter!" Sailor Jupiter called out as Mercury had told her. "Oak Evolution!"
A pattern of electrical bursts in the sky cut off the demon from its flight. Frustrated, it descended but found no escape route in any direction. Venus would cut it off with Crescent Beam. Mercury would attack with Shine Aqua Illusion if it neared her, while Tuxedo Mask seemed to have an indefatigable supply of the energy-sapping roses. Though Jupiter was struggling to maintain her position and the canopy above, Mercury and Venus would shift to aid her whenever the demon headed her way.
Inexorably the four people herded the demon toward Rei. As they approached, Rei was in the process of charging a handful of wards. She held back on firing them until she was point blank with the demon. This demon had proven both crafty and slippery. She'd missed an unusual amount of times for her already and she didn't want to miss again.
Nearer they came. Nearer and nearer, until Rei could feel the demon's hideous green eyes boring into her skull. But she maintained her position, resolute that she would fulfill her mission as a Shinto Priest and bind or banish this demon from the world of humanity. It was almost upon her, so close that she could sense the remnant energy of the innocent infants it had slaughtered surrounding it. Just a little closer . . .
"Jupiter!" Mercury cried out. Jupiter slumped to one knee while the electrical canopy above them dissipated. She knelt down next to her friend, trying to divide her attention between Jupiter and the demon.
Realizing it was now or never, Rei let fly with a barrage of wards. Spotting the opening above, Meshiwokuu Eiji launched itself up, twisting and dodging to avoid the wards and the dozen roses launched by Tuxedo Mask. For all its work, though, it seemed ready to fall prey to one of the wards. But at the last second a rose it had dodged picked off the ward in mid-air.
"It's going to get away!" Rei wailed.
"Venus Love Me Chain!" Venus cried out, launching a chain at the fleeing demon, even though that attack had proven less than successful in the past. At the last second though, the demon's wings swatted the chain away.
"Jupiter, what's wrong?" Mercury asked, trying to observe everything she could should Jupiter be unable to communicate.
"Ran out of juice," Jupiter whispered. Mercury could see she was on the verge of exhaustion. "Guess I'm still . . . out of shape . . . from pregnancy. . . sorry . . ."
"Demon!" they all heard Sailor Moon call out and everyone's blood ran cold. "Here I am! You wanted me! Come and get me!"
"You little IDIOT!" Rei gasped, breaking into a run toward Sailor Moon. Tuxedo Mask was already sprinting for her as she stood atop an incline on the arboretum grounds by a small grove of cherry trees. Her arms were extended, inviting the demon's attack.
Instantly the demon turned toward her. It was as if the demon sensed the connection she had to it, sensed that if it eliminated this human it could go on safely feeding. Though her life energies, strong as they were, would be incompatible with its needs, drowning her in a sea of contamination would prevent what occurred to it five hundred years ago. That, as it dived for Sailor Moon, would be just what the demon would do.
"Move, Sailor Moon!" Tuxedo Mask shouted desperately as he ran. "Please!"
But Sailor Moon remained frozen in place, offering herself up as a sacrificial lamb. Roses appeared in Tuxedo Mask's hand, but at that distance would be too late to change the demon's course. Meshiwokuu Eiji swooped down on its target pitilessly.
But when it was nearly upon her, the Moon Tier suddenly appeared in her hand.
"Silver Moon Crystal Power Kiss!" Sailor Moon proclaimed. Healing silver energy swirled around her, catching the demon in its coils. The demon reacted as if it were bathing in acid, writhing and screeching within the grip of Sailor Moon's crystal energy. Though it was clearly a struggle for her, Sailor Moon kept up the energy output until Tuxedo Mask and Rei could arrive.
Rei already had her wards out. Racing through the charging spell, she let fly. They all hit, forcing the demon rigid. With a nod to Sailor Moon that she could let go, Rei stepped in.
"Kami of fire, hear the pleas of your priestess!" Rei intoned, her index fingers steepled to her forehead between her eyes. "Purify this evil from the earth! Strike down this demon so that it may corrupt life no longer! I offer all that I have and all that I am! I beg you to do this, Kami!"
As the other senshi approached, Meshiwokuu Eiji howled once. Then Rei's wards simultaneously burst into flames. In moments the demon was engulfed by the fire and consumed.
"Man, you've got some powerful friends," Venus marveled. Rei ignored her, stalking right up to Sailor Moon.
"Just what did you think you were doing?" the priest demanded.
"Somebody had to do something," Sailor Moon replied petulantly. Then she dropped her gaze. "Go ahead and yell at me."
Instead Rei wrapped her arms around Sailor Moon and hugged her tightly.
"One of these days you're going to give me heart failure," the priest muttered.
When Rei finally released Sailor Moon, Tuxedo Mask moved in. He took the future queen of Crystal Tokyo in his arms and kissed her, long, hard and passionately. Hearing Sailor Moon's coo of delight brought smiles to her senshi.
"So, it's dead?" Jupiter asked, leaning on Mercury for support.
"Gone forever," Rei nodded.
"Thank you," Jupiter said with a mother's earnestness.
"And thank you guys for having my back," Rei replied.
"This calls for a party! I'll call for pizza," Venus offered, whipping out her cell phone.
"Um, rain check, huh Blondie?" Jupiter offered meekly, almost embarrassed. "All I want to do right now is go home, pick up Akiko and hug her until she's ready to go to college."
"Sure," Venus grinned. "We understand. You go do what you have to do - - Mommy."
"You're begging for one, Blondie," Jupiter said with mock indignation. Then she nodded to the others and hurried home.
"Well she's no fun anymore," Venus smirked. "But the offer still stands. Pizza party anywhere you guys want to go, my treat."
"You've got money?" Mercury asked.
"Not much," Venus said, then leered. "But Toshi-chan can be very generous when properly motivated."
Rei, though, only turned away without acknowledging her.
"Rei?" Sailor Moon called after her. The woman's distress was so great that she lost focus and reverted back to Usagi.
"I'm not in much of a mood for celebrating," the priest replied curtly. "Besides, I-I have to tell Kaji-sensei that the demon has finally been destroyed. And then I have to get him some help."
The remaining senshi and Tuxedo Mask watched Rei walk off in stunned silence. Usagi glanced at Sailor Venus and saw how stricken and hurt the senshi was. Venus caught Usagi looking at her and the hurt disappeared behind one of Minako's many masks.
"It's all right, Usagi," Venus offered, reverting to Minako. "I probably should be getting back anyway - - try to maybe salvage the audition I bailed on to be here. Bye, kids. See you on the pop charts."
As Minako departed, Usagi turned to Ami and Mamoru, desperately hoping that they knew some way to salvage the situation. Their bleak concern told her that they had no miracles either.
"This isn't good," Usagi murmured fearfully. "We have to find a way to bring them back together! It-it can't end like this!"
"I don't want it to end like this, either," Ami said. "But Rei seems genuinely hurt by what's happened."
"Then I'll get Mina-chan to apologize! It won't be hard! I know Mina-chan will do it!"
Ami grimaced. "I don't doubt she will. But it may not be enough this time."
Concluded in Chapter 12