THE EXTERMINATORS
Chapter 10: "The Trap"
By Bill K.
"Come on!" Vesta roared, mutating back into a human from the lioness form she had worn. "After her before she gets away!"
"Vesta, stop!" screeched Juno. Vesta was rushing to the teleport tube, Pallas following diligently behind her. Both senshi came to a screeching halt, but only Vesta looked back impatiently at her sister senshi.
"It's not safe for human transport, Moron!" Ceres barked, helping Saturn to her feet. "Viluy only used it because she's an artificial life form now! God, you're dumb!"
"So what do we do?" demanded Vesta. "Just let her get away?"
"I'll go after her," Sailor Moon told them. "I think I know where she's going. And if I don't, Diana and I can find her. We found her once."
"But what if we're already too late?" Ceres asked.
"The fact that I'm still here means we're not," Sailor Moon answered.
"However, perhaps it would be prudent to go after her as soon as possible," Diana recommended. Sailor Moon gave her a curious look. "I know I told you that in time travel it doesn't matter when you leave because you're headed for a specific moment regardless - - it's just - - well, the longer we wait, the more concerned I am about a temporal change occurring and wiping you out of existence."
Diana looked up and found Sailor Moon staring across the room. Momentarily annoyed, the cat followed Sailor Moon's line of sight and found Saturn walking toward the cryogenic tube that held Sailor Pluto.
"Saturn," Sailor Moon said softly, coming up behind her at Saturn stared down at the tube. "You're not going to try to heal her by yourself, are you?"
"I know I shouldn't," Saturn whispered. "It might be more than I can manage. But I have to try, don't I?"
"Sensei Mizuno-sama can thaw her more safely," Juno suggested.
"But Sailor Moon may need her help now," Saturn offered, almost as an alibi to cover that she desperately needed to help the woman she thought of as "Setsuna-mama".
Then she felt a hand close around hers. She looked over and found Sailor Moon clutching her hand.
"Maybe you or I don't have the power to do it by ourselves," Sailor Moon said. Her grip tightened on Saturn's hand. "But together . . .?" and she shrugged.
Saturn's eyes misted. "Thank you, Usa," she whispered.
"Hey," Sailor Moon grinned, "she was my friend before she was your mama."
"My Lady!" Diana prodded urgently.
"We can take time to do this," the pink senshi replied.
At a silent signal from Sailor Moon, Juno cut the power to the cryogenic tube. Instantly
auras flared around the two senshi. Sailor Moon's was pink, while Sailor Saturn's was a deep
violet. The others watched as both teens slipped into a trance. Their auras began to merge,
swirling around the pair. Vesta glanced at Pallas and noticed the girl was staring blankly at them.
"Pallas?" Vesta prodded her. "What's wrong, Stupid?"
"Pretty colors," Pallas whispered absently. She seemed hypnotized by the light show of aura energy, or else by the psychic energy the pair were transmitting.
When their auras were perfectly blended, Sailor Moon raised her free hand. The Moon Scepter appeared in it. Sailor Moon mechanically pointed it at the frozen Pluto.
"Moon Princess," Sailor Moon said distantly, and silently Saturn mimicked her mouth movements, "Halation."
Pink radiation blended with streaks of violet shot out from the Scepter and bathed Sailor Pluto in its energy. Gradually the blue coloring of Sailor Pluto's skin began to recede, first to white and then to a more normal beige. Within moments her chest began to rise and fall. Her eyelids remain closed, but there was eye movement beneath. Suddenly, stiffly, her forearms moved. They rose up, then crossed over Pluto's chest. Her lips pulled into a smile, then formed a silent word.
Refresh.
The power died away. Sailor Moon and Sailor Saturn's hands released from one another from fatigue. Saturn took a deep, steadying breath. She was tired, drained. But she opened her eyes and looked - - and found Juno and Ceres helping Sailor Pluto out of the cryogenic tube.
"Mama!" she choked and flew across the room, diving into Pluto's arms. She pressed her face to Pluto's breast to hide her tears.
"Hotaru-chan," the normally implacable Sailor Pluto whispered, smiling sadly as she held the girl to her.
"Diana," the gray cat heard Sailor Moon prompt softly. She looked up at her Princess. "Let's get going."
"Are you sufficiently recovered, My Lady?"
"Yeah," Sailor Moon nodded. The cat gave her a suspicious look. "Come on. We've got Moms to save."
With that, Sailor Moon quietly darted up the floating stairs to ground level. Only Juno noticed her leave. She didn't say anything because she knew it would do no good.
"Setsuna-mama, I-I was so scared for you!" Saturn whimpered, refusing to let go of the senshi of time.
"I-I must confess to," Pluto stammered out, "to some confusion. I . . ."
Saturn felt her go limp and slump against the slight young senshi's body. It was momentarily a struggle to support Pluto's full limp weight. However, Juno and Ceres quickly moved in. Together the trio eased Sailor Pluto down to the floor and propped her up against a wall. As the others watched, Saturn gripped Pluto by the shoulders and felt along her cheek.
"Mama?" Saturn asked, her voice frantic and edgy. Pluto seemed dazed and incoherent. The violet senshi wondered if she had enough energy left to her to attempt another healing.
"Forgive me," Pluto replied, her coloring pale and her eyes closed. She brought a shaky hand up to her head. "I - - too much - - I cannot focus. Events of the past and future swirl around me. I cannot tell what is real and what is not."
"What can we do?" Saturn pleaded.
Pluto expelled a shuddering breath.
"Tell me," she began, her eyes still closed to shut out as much excess stimuli as possible, "tell me what has happened."
"You don't remember?" Juno inquired.
"I remember too much!" wheezed Pluto. "So many contradictory events assault my brain that I cannot determine what is and what was from what might have been and what is yet to come." She opened her eyes and looked intently at Sailor Saturn. "You must tell me what has happened, so I can determine where reality begins and ends."
"Is this some sort of effect of the," Vesta began to ask, then halted over her next word. "Um, of her being frozen?"
"Could be," Juno replied. "I'm calling in Sensei Mizuno-sama."
"NO!" Pluto shouted anxiously. "You must not!"
"Why?" Juno asked, spooked by her adamance. Pluto only gripped her head again.
"I see," Pluto began, then caught herself. "I see a danger. I cannot yet know if it is real, if it exists in a future to be or one forever barred. For her safety, we must not bring her here until I know it is safe."
"Sailor Pluto, you're hurt!" Juno protested.
"I need only know what has transpired to heal that which afflicts me." Again she turned to Saturn. "Please tell me."
"All right," Saturn nodded. "Apparently you were captured by Viluy."
"Yes," Pluto replied, her eyes staring off into space, into her own past.
"She planned to go back into time and murder Queen Serenity when she was a little girl. I-I guess Sailor Moon stopped her. She probably needed you out of the way."
"I remember now," Pluto whispered. "She appeared in the dimensional pocket where the Door of Time exists - - the single place in the universe where I am incapable of seeing the future. She thus took me by surprise. She was quite fast - - faster than a normal human." Pluto covered her mouth with her hand. "Yes, I see it clearly now. Viluy digitally transferred her brain into an artificial body. It explains much."
"What happened?" Ceres asked.
Pluto glanced at her, mortified by memories of her failure. "I was overcome. I assumed I fought a human and was overcome because of my miscalculation. From there, Viluy was free to use the Door of Time itself for her murderous schemes. Once more I failed in my mission as guardian."
"It's all right, Mama," Saturn told her. "Sailor Moon fixed things."
"Once," Pluto replied, "and only through the fortune of fate and the gods. I can see clearly now all that has happened." She looked directly at Saturn. "Viluy initially succeeded."
A chill ran through the room.
"I must go," Pluto said. She struggled to get to her feet.
"Mama, no! You're hurt! You still need to rest!" cried Saturn.
"I will rest," Pluto told her, though she still struggled to her feet. "I must, for I must be at full strength. But I must take the precaution of resting within the dimensional nexus. For only there will I be safe and able to act. My Lady will have need of me."
She was about to stagger off when a hand caught her wrist. Pluto turned and found Sailor Vesta holding onto her.
"Take us with you," Vesta almost demanded.
"I cannot," Pluto replied. "There is no place for you five in this particular past." She started to leave again.
Then, gripping her staff with both hands, Pluto struck it nose first to the floor and gave it a quarter turn to the left. She faded from sight like a wraith.
Sailor Moon slipped out of the media shop and raced down the Promenade toward the Elevated. The Elevated was an interconnected series of pathways above the sidewalks, but below the city's organized air car traffic. Each pathway was made of flat, smooth conductive material. Located at each entrance to the pathway were platforms about 750 centimeters wide designed for individual travel. The platforms ran on superconductor technology and had handlebars for the passenger to hang onto and steer with. The Elevated was two to three times faster than walking, twice as fast as running and not as exerting - - perfect for the senshi in a hurry. In moments Sailor Moon was atop the Elevated and on a platform.
"Come on, Diana!" the senshi said impatiently, looking back at the hesitant gray cat.
"Must we, My Lady?" frowned the cat. "You know of my aversion to those - - contraptions!"
"If we're going to get to the palace before Viluy rewrites us out of history, yes!"
"Perhaps I can - - catch up with you?" Diana offered.
"Stop being a 'fraidy cat!"
"There is no need to use disparaging stereotypes! And I have good reason to be wary of this - - device! It was not designed with cats in mind!"
"That excuse would be more believable if you weren't scared of the vacuum-bots, too," scowled Sailor Moon.
"And if you were as close to the floor as I am, you'd be wary of them as well!" Diana huffed. Sailor Moon replied with an impatient look. "Oh, very well! But do steer cautiously, My Lady!"
"No promises," Sailor Moon replied as the cat gingerly mounted the platform. The pink senshi kicked away from the entrance and onto the conductive pathway, then lurched into traffic at top speed, weaving in and out of other travelers headed toward the palace.
With Diana's claws sunk into the material of her boot.
Barely coming to a stop at the palace station, Sailor Moon hit the station running and raced to the palace. The greeter at the entrance barely had time to acknowledge her as she flew by, her twin trails of pink hair resembling a comet's tail. However, she and the palace staff were used to the energetic Princess flying by them, so nothing was thought to be amiss. Gaining the part of the palace that housed the dimensional nexus, Sailor Moon plunged through it and into the non-time limbo where the Door of Time dwelled, Diana hot on her heels. Once inside, though, she came to a sudden stop. Diana barely avoided crashing into her calf and peered up inquiringly at her.
"What is it, Sailor Moon?" Diana asked.
Sailor Moon looked around warily.
"Think about it, Diana," Sailor Moon whispered, still casting suspicious glances around the misty nothingness of the dimensional limbo. "Viluy is supposed to be smarter than anyone, even as smart as Aunt Ami. She'd have to know we'd follow her, right?"
"It would be prudent to assume so," Diana replied.
"So wouldn't it be logical to stop us first, then go back in time anytime she wanted to and try to kill Mom?"
"Yes. Otherwise she'd only achieve stalemate as we'd continue to travel back in time and undo what she's done."
"And if you were going to set a trap for us," Sailor Moon asked, maintaining her vigil, "where would you do it?"
"Here in the dimensional limbo," Diana answered. "The single place she'd be sure we'd be in sooner or later. Very good, Sailor Moon."
"But where is she?" Sailor Moon posed. "I wish Luna-P was still working."
"Perhaps you can trace her. You just need to search with something other than your eyes and ears."
"Once again, with clarity," Sailor Moon suggested.
"Connect with your crystal, My Lady," Diana told her. "Use it to search for Viluy's energy. Your crystal has a natural affinity with life and the force that powers us all. That's one of the gifts your father passed down to you."
"But Viluy's not really alive," argued the teen. "She's an artificial life form now."
"But something powers her android form. Search for the power force that is the opposite of life. You should be able to sense it because it will seem alien and uninviting to you."
"OK, I'll try."
Sailor Moon reluctantly closed her eyes and reached out to her pink crystal. When she connected, she could see the limbo in a different way, even with her eyes closed. Diana was right next to her, glowing like a small sun. Even the limbo itself seemed to give off a smaller glow, though it was colder and less inviting.
"This must be what Diana was talking about," Sailor Moon thought.
Encouraged, she began to sweep the area around her with her mind. She could see the swirling mists in her mind, for they had a different energy signature than the limbo itself and seemed to cloak parts of the area like a sheer curtain. As she scanned, Sailor Moon wondered if perhaps Viluy wasn't there, if she had in fact gone on to the past. A part of her wanted to give up and head back into the past to stop her, but that part was shushed by a newer, more mature part of her brain. This was the dimensional limbo. Here they had all the time in the world.
And all as once she spotted something glowing along the violet end of the spectrum. It was alien and uninviting, almost the antithesis of life itself.
"Viluy!" she announced, her eyes flashing open. At once she spotted a metallic belt buckle speeding toward her head with the velocity of a bullet. Only the forewarning of her crystal's vision allowed her to narrowly avoid its path.
"You senshi continue to surprise me," Viluy said, boldly stepping out from the concealment of the swirling mists. "Perhaps that's why I've lost so many skirmishes with your mother and her friends. Unknowns inject too many variables into an equation to be successfully accounted for."
"Or maybe you're just fighting on the wrong side!" Sailor Moon growled. She pulled her tiara from her head, ready to energize it.
"A rather simplistic view of things," snickered Viluy. "But then, no more than what I would expect, given your social enculturation. Your mother never did have a very sophisticated world view. She's only kept her 'society of benevolent monarchy' going this long through the force of her own will. The moment she's gone, it will crumble under the weight of humanity's ingrained greed and violence."
The tip of Viluy's right index finger, dangling at the woman's side, began to spark with electricity. It caught Sailor Moon's eyes and she warily steadied herself for an attack.
But the attack came from twin prongs launched from Viluy's belt. They pierced the senshi's chest like twin hypodermic needles. In the moment it took for this to register, Sailor Moon noticed the prongs were attached to thin wire. Then her world was sent spinning into complete chaos as electricity passed through the wire and into her body. Sailor Moon was seized up, shuddering helplessly under the influence of the voltage. Her vision was clouded yellow with sharp thin black streaks buzzing through it. The pain of the attack overwhelmed every conscious thought the girl had. Then the electricity stopped and Sailor Moon slumped to the floor like a marionette bereft of strings.
Hissing violently, her ears laid back and her eyes glowing with hatred, Diana launched herself at Viluy's face, teeth and claws bared.
"Get away from me, animal!" snapped Viluy, delivering a vicious backhand blow that sent Diana careening off into the mists of the limbo..
Satisfied that there were no more interruptions, Viluy turned back to her foe. She walked casually up to the fallen, quivering Sailor Moon and stood towering over her.
"Much as I would be interested in how you and your body would react to conscious vivisection," Viluy said, licking her lips in an involuntary human response, "I am on a schedule. It's too bad this body doesn't carry enough current to electrocute you. But certain laws of physics are immutable. I calculate that snapping your neck would probably be the quickest way of permanently dealing with you."
And she bent down, her hand extended for Sailor Moon's soft pink throat, while the senshi looked up at her helplessly.
Continued in Chapter 11
