Chapter 56: The Famous Men Who Had To Fall To Rise Again
"Her insides are a mess. Internal bleeding, nervous system was failing, muscle contraction, lungs flooded. And you'd never know it looking at the corpse, just a little blood around the mouth."
Several days had passed since Venus's corpse had been found out in the middle of nowhere on Uranus, immediately captivating the entire galaxy due to the mystery surrounding it. Intense debate was raging everywhere over who might have been responsible and the potential connection to her recent participation in major criminal activity. Fortunately, while news of her death couldn't help but leak, everything else had thus far been suppressed.
Now, the Venusian King and Queen had signed off on a gradual release of the truth. Or at least, the little truth that was readily available, given most of the circumstances surrounding her death were still unknown even to them. But, what they had managed to determine was now being discussed, with a veteran coroner from Uranus handing off his findings to the various royal families of the galaxy first. From there, they would decide what the public would be allowed to know.
The darkly-uniformed scientist was standing in front of a truly remarkable collection of the collective ruling power of the galaxy, all of them gathered in a securely locked and guarded room in the Capitol building of Herschel, one of the major cities of Uranus, to make the knowledge transfer.
"So she was poisoned?" Queen Mercury asked.
"Most certainly, Your Highness," the coroner replied. "Nothing else makes any sense. We can't find any wound on her skin that indicates an entry point, which makes this all the more confusing. It seems as if the poison was ingested orally. As for this poison, it's a very elaborate mix. Not something just anyone would be able to access or create. Its scientific name is Zosmin-B."
Three rows of large, cushioned chairs were neatly lined up in front of where the coroner was standing, giving the collection of royals an orderly and organized place to sit as he fielded their many questions. The only person present who wasn't either a King or Queen was Kunzite, Endymion having managed to convince the two rulers of Venus to allow him in under the pretense of Queen Serenity not feeling well and wanting one of the Earth generals in the immediate vicinity. The white-haired bodyguard was doing a remarkable job of looking unaffected and disinterested, as if the former Princess meant nothing to him.
"She drank poison? Why?" Queen Neptune chimed in from the back row.
"I can't guess to that, Your Majesty," he answered. "I'm just in charge of the autopsy. Although another interesting question is when she ingested it. Zosmin-B is a dormant compound, causing no effects whatsoever, until exposed to a particular radio field frequency. It's possible that Princess Venus ingested the compound years ago."
"Venus," Queen Venus spat out from the front row, right in front of the coroner. "Venus. She didn't die a Princess, we saw to that. Frankly, she should be stripped of even the name Venus now."
"My apologies," the coroner said quickly. "Um, Venus could have ingested this compound as long as three years prior to its activation. However, it's a near mathematical certainty that it was activated purposefully and with intent to kill her."
"Not exactly the method I would have chosen to commit suicide," Queen Neptune said, perhaps just a little coldly.
"I doubt it was that," King Venus chimed in, standing up from his front-row seat and turning to face the small crowd. "There are far easier, and less painful, ways to take your own life. Besides, with as far as she had managed to get, it made no sense for her to commit suicide there. She actually might have had a chance to get away at that point."
"So who killed her?"
The room's cadence was broken, everyone turning as one towards Kunzite. Even the general looked a little surprised at himself, having spoken up and injected himself into this conversation. It was assumed by everyone that he would serve as no more than the window dressing unless something happened with Queen Serenity, and was perhaps even a little inappropriate for him to say anything. Of course, his question was more or less on the minds of everyone.
King Venus cleared his throat. "Um, we don't know. By the time the scene was examined, she had been dead for several minutas, so we couldn't even check the atmosphere for energy particles from a ship exhaust. We believe she met with someone, based off of her movements in her final moments, and whoever she met with did leave in a ship. Unfortunately, we were unable to pick up the trail beyond that."
"
"Thank you for keeping your composure in there," Endymion said, leaning back in the pilot chair after putting The Bastion on an automated course back towards Earth.
"Did I?" Kunzite asked, looking decidedly less guarded now that he was among confidants. "I wasn't so sure I did."
Endymion shrugged. "I doubt anyone even remembers who it was who asked the question, they all so obviously had it on their mind." He twisted around, looking over at his wife for a quick beat, who was seated in the backmost chair of the cockpit, clearly not paying any attention to their conversation, sitting there with her eyes closed and giant headphones on her ears. "I'm sorry. I know you cared for her and wanted things to go differently."
"Mm," Kunzite grunted. "It doesn't particularly matter and it doesn't affect me in any way." His words didn't mesh well with his demeanor, which was unmistakably much more dazed and languid than usual. It was as if a haze of miasma had afflicted him. Privately, Endymion hoped he would overcome it by the end of the day, as only a fully-engaged Kunzite would be able to carry out the tasks he needed of him over the next several days.
"Kunzite, you don't have to pretend. Especially not now," Endymion said. "There's a reason why I made sure you could be present for the de-briefing today."
"She was close," Kunzite said, just a little morosely. "Both times. She was close to having the funding for her coup, close to being free and clear with enough money to run forever. She worked hard, I...I feel like she deserved better." He sighed. "She was probably just about to contact us to ask for the money. Another day, and she was in the wind."
"Kunzite, it's fine," Endymion continued to insist. "I know you cared for her. And I understand. And I'll tell you this much, Kunzite, if it makes you feel any better, I'm going to see to it that you have the opportunity to do what you will with the one who killed her."
"I can only assume we're on the same page on the killer?" Kunzite asked. "Or, at least, the mastermind behind it."
"It's the only thing that makes sense," Endymion answered simply. "I'm sure Aphrodite went into panic mode the moment she heard that Venus evaded arrest, and assumed she'd come to take her revenge unless she got to her first."
Kunzite nodded. "Yes, that...I don't know what else it could have been." Kunzite reflexively glanced over his shoulder, towards Serenity, as he still hadn't entirely adjusted to the Earth Queen being part of the deepest part of the inner circle of trust yet.
"We'll need her anyway," Endymion stated. "I'm sure she's under significant protection, and we don't have time to wait for the agency to pull it back. You understand what I'm saying?"
"Yes, Your Highness. I'll have Aphrodite in our custody in a matter of days," Kunzite stated. "And thank you for your support. It means a lot to me."
Endymion smiled, turning back towards the ship's controls in front of him. "I'll be counting on you to deliver on that. And I'm going to need you to arrange a meeting with someone. I think it's time I introduced myself to a certain notorious individual."
"
Queen Serenity knelt down in front of her daughter, right hand finding the top of the young girl's head, rubbing her palm back and forth atop the burgeoning collection of hair. For once, she looked genuinely happy, something that was happening less and less as the days went on.
Being within the familiar walls of the Moon Palace, where she had grown up, was also a small degree of solace for the young royal. For just a little while, she could pretend that things were normal, forget about the things that had practically caused her to turtle up in recent cycles.
"Um, sweetie."
Serenity looked up, finding her mother looking just a tad uncomfortable across the room. More than halfway across the giant room, it was almost as if she was trying to keep her distance for some reason. She also lacked the ease that you would expect someone to have while watching their beloved daughter interact with their beloved granddaughter.
"Something the matter?"
"N-no, not...well, not really. There's just something I want to talk about, in private, whenever you get a moment." She gave a quick glance towards the young Chibiusa, who was still staring up at her mother, the colored blocks in her hands temporarily forgotten.
Serenity got up off her knee. "I'll be right back, darling," she said, sounding just a little unconvincing, stepping around her daughter and quickly approaching her mother. "S-sure, let's just talk now. What's going on?"
The elder Serenity jerked her head off behind her before turning around, quickly retreating to a neighboring lounge room, far away from Chibiusa. Perhaps overly paranoid on her part, but the young Princess was starting to have at least some ability to repeat words and phrases that she heard.
"Chibiusa didn't do something bad, did she?" Serenity asked, still bewildered by her mother's morose tone.
"No, no, it has nothing to do with her," she answered, turning back towards her daughter the moment she was through into the neighboring room. A large general purpose chamber, mostly for lounging, not unlike the one they had just temporarily left Chibiusa in.
"I was trying to...avoid saying anything the last few times you've come here, I know it's probably an uncomfortable topic." The eldest of the surviving Serenities kept an eye on Chibiusa in the distance, craning her neck up every few beats to make sure she wasn't trying to sneak off or do something she shouldn't be doing. "But I think it might be better for both of us if I put the cards on the table."
"What are you talking about?" Serenity asked, still genuinely mystified.
"O-okay, please, don't be mad at your husband," she said.
The young Queen immediately lost whatever bit of ease she had at the mere mention of Endymion, putting her right hand subtly behind her thigh, out of sight, and clenching it up.
"I basically dragged it out of him, I didn't give him much of a choice, he didn't want to tell me anything," she continued. "If you're going to be mad at anyone, be mad at me. But he told me everything that happened."
Perhaps luckily for the Queen, she was so utterly shocked by this proclamation that she wasn't even able to fully display the full degree of confusion she actually felt. She just blanched a bit, eyes widening a touch, breath hitching.
"W-what?" she managed out of her tight throat.
"He told me what happened, he...he explained why things have been so tough for you. And I want you to know, it made total sense to me, and I completely understand, and more than that, I don't think you should beat yourself up over it."
The Queen turned away, afraid that she might give something away if she kept looking at her mother, holding her tongue until she was given more context.
"No, no, sweetie, really, I mean it. Look at me, these things happen. Sometimes, they happen with people you'd least expect!" she continued.
Begrudgingly, the Queen looked back at her mother, having to trust that she'd be able to conceal her emotions as she tried to delicately obtain the truth. "I...I don't…"
"Jadeite's a very handsome man!" she exclaimed. "I get it!"
In the whole wide galaxy of things she was thinking her mother might have been talking about, this wasn't particularly high. She looked mortified, and quickly flushed red with embarrassment.
"What?!" she exclaimed, face twisted in shock.
"Believe me, I've noticed. I mean, of the four, it's definitely him," she continued, under the terribly misguided impression that she was helping. "I've had...certain thoughts about him too—"
"Mom!" Queen Serenity snapped, flashing a bit of anger as it almost seemed as if her mother was purposefully trying to get her to die of embarrassment.
"S-sorry, sorry," she said, shaking her head. "But, well, he told me about your little affair. Again, please, I forced him to tell me what was going on. B-but, as long as you need to get past this, I'm more than happy to keep Chibiusa around. Just, um, if that makes it any easier for you."
The Queen, however, had already been reset from surprise to anger, and no amount of generic platitudes and offers from her mother were going to undo that right now. She looked down at the floor, scowling deeply, a fine point of rage simmering in her mind now.
"
In hindsight, perhaps the isolated little condo where Aphrodite had been allowed to temporarily live under protection was a little too isolated. Far away from any major cities and neatly tucked away on the incline of a large mountain on the eastern hemisphere of Mars, it was just a little too noteworthy when activity around it started picking up. A dozen armed sentries seemed a little unnecessary for a simple vacation home in a relatively rural area, so it was clear there was something else going on.
Captain Gais, already having voiced his concerns about the location that the agency had chosen for hiding Aphrodite, was thinking even harder about those concerns as he sprinted out of the condo's front door, rifle out to bear, the pitch black night being harshly interrupted by a large landspeeder plowing a massive hole right into the side of the structure. A massive, gaping hole in the brick wall that surrounded the house clearly indicated where the vehicle had made its initial penetration. The landspeeder was on fire, the entire thing covered in flames, only adding to the chaos it was causing.
All the while, on the other side of the house, a small yet noticeable explosion was knocking down another portion of the outer wall, just one more place from where an assault could come from.
"Jason, Lykos, keep eyes on the witness!" he roared into a transmitter on his neck, leaning his head down a bit. "Everyone else, MOVE! To the openings in the defense!"
He only gave the rest of his squad a beat to reply. They didn't have time for anything more.
"Jason, Lykos, secure the woman!" he reiterated. "Respond!"
"She...she's gone, Captain."
Gais was half-dreading that response, but expectation did nothing to dull the sharp dagger of ice he felt in his gut.
"H-how is that possible?!" he demanded, finding temporary solace in the fact that it didn't make any sense for her to have been taken so fast. As if that made the fact that she, apparently, was gone any better.
"Platon was watching her in the study, we just found him out cold and she's gone!" the voice explained. "We don't know what happened, but someone got in there when the landspeeder crashed through the wall!"
"Shit!" Gais snapped. "Everyone out! Secure the condo from the outside!" Even as he went through the motions of trying to contain the quickly-deteriorating situation, he couldn't help but privately admit to himself that anyone competent enough to snatch Aphrodite that quickly, with that much coordination and expert timing, was almost certainly already long gone.
"
"Your Highness, we have her."
Endymion felt an endorphin rush at Kunzite's proclamation. Immediately, a decent portion of the concern he was feeling over the precarious situation he was in had been eased. Certainly, they were far from out of the woods, but immediately things seemed far more reachable. Casting a quick look over his shoulder, checking the opulent Earth Palace main hall for any possible observers, the High King lifted the disc up towards his mouth.
"You're on your way back?" Endymion asked in a bit of a hush.
"We'll have her in a secret, secure location in six minutas," Kunzite responded through the connection, the audio being fed into Endymion's right ear via an attachment from the disc.
"Do whatever you have to do to her as fast as you can," Endymion instructed. "Every secunda counts. One of those girls might be negotiating a deal as we speak." He cleared his throat. "I plied a little information out of my father at breakfast."
"Are you sure that was a good idea?" Kunzite sounded a little alarmed. "The last thing we need is your father being able to put the pieces together of who could have possibly known enough to pull this off."
"Relax," Endymion answered easily. "I got a few mimosas in him, and he was chomping at the bit to brag anyway, I hardly had to do anything. Look, two of Venus's lieutenants are being held on The Savery. The other two are in the Mariner Detention Center on Venus. They didn't want all four in the same location just in case some sort of disaster happened on The Savery."
He could hear Kunzite sighing. "That complicates things. Your Highness, we might want to construct some sort of backup plan. Perhaps there's a way we could inform Venus's lieutenants that we plan to continue their hush money payments."
"I am not paying those girls another cred!" Endymion snapped. "Nothing changes, the plan will work. We just have to put things in order quickly. Get what we need out of Aphrodite, once the job is done she's yours to do with as you please."
Before Kunzite could raise any more objections, he ended the call, now just a few steps away from his bedroom door. Pocketing the disc, Endymion stepped forward, fully expecting to enter into a quiet, peaceful chamber where everything present was completely under his control.
As soon as he pulled it open, however, his wife was right in front of him, hands on her hips, looking decidedly furious. While Serenity's mood in recent times had generally held steady at a fairly obvious significant degree of unhappiness, Endymion could immediately tell something specifically was wrong. He pulled his head back a couple of finger-lengths instinctively.
"Um, good afternoon?" he said.
"You are unbelievable," she seethed, conveying as much menace as her tiny frame could possibly manage, which turned out to be a surprisingly large amount.
"In what way?" he asked, probably sounding a little more cheeky than he should have.
"You told my mother about...the...the…" Serenity was either consumed with too much rage to articulate herself, or was simply trying to come up with an appropriate way to describe her "affair" with Jadeite.
"Oh, oh, right, I...she told you about that?" Endymion absentmindedly slammed the bedroom door shut behind him with a jarring crack. "I...well, I guess it's not surprising."
"Endymion! I have...I've never been so embarrassed in my life!" Serenity fumed.
"I honestly completely forgot I did that, she...she caught me off-guard. She basically cornered me, I had to come up with something that would satisfy her on the spot." As if that explanation was all that would be needed to appease her and at least put her back to her typical level of unhappiness, he started moving over towards his desk against the near wall. "She...she's still accepting that though, right? She's still—"
"Shut up!" Serenity demanded. "Endymion, you had no right to tell others about that!"
"Serenity, what does it matter?" Endymion turned back towards her, taking her anger at least slightly more seriously now. "She wasn't upset at you about it, was she? She didn't act like it when she was talking to me."
"Do you really want to do this?" Serenity asked. "After everything you've had me keep secret on your behalf?"
"Serenity, just pretend I lied! I basically did, I just needed to say something to get her to back off! If you hadn't slept with Jadeite, and need I remind you, you actually did, I would have made up something else! There are more important things to think about right now, I don't have time for this."
With that, he turned back around, recognizing he wasn't going to get any peace around Serenity right now. He could feel her angered gaze on the back of his head as he retreated, but was already putting her emotions on the mental backburner in favor of the current crisis.
"
"There's no chance this actually works, right?" Nephrite said, his typical stoicism breaking a bit under the absurdity of the sight in front of him. Everything about this situation was absurd, a true testament to the extreme lengths Endymion's four generals had to go through serving him.
"The...the theory is sound," Zoisite said, sounding rather unconvinced himself. "I have no comment beyond that."
Aphrodite, once the strikingly beautiful and practically regal secret lieutenant of Princess Venus, had very little in common with the Aphrodite that Nephrite had met on Saturn a couple cycles prior. An imprisonment, betrayal, kidnapping, and interrogation hadn't been kind to her. Even her natural Venusian beauty was barely detectable under heavy layers of the stress and despair that she had been under constantly in recent days. Her long blonde hair was disheveled and disorganized, her posture was slouched, she looked almost broken in light of recent events. She was slumped over in a simple metal chair, hands resting on the plain metal table in front of her, both of her wrists restrained together via a chain that looped through a couple gaps in the table. Her right hand was heavily bruised and visibly fractured.
A couple steps away, Jadeite and a black-haired woman were standing next to each other, holding hands. They were both on a slightly-elevated platform in the middle of the room, the base of the circular dais connected via several wires to a large square black container in the corner of the room. The large container had been filled to capacity with pure, refined imperium.
The wall directly across from Aphrodite was perhaps the most bizarre sight. The entire surface was covered by several thousand tiny screens, each of them currently blank. Kunzite was closely watching this wall of small monitors, standing right by the table that Aphrodite was restrained to.
The four generals, one prisoner, and one newcomer were gathered in a small transport vessel, not far away from Venus, several thousand leugas away from The Savery. As close as they could get to the massive space station without being detected and raising concerns. Given the intense security on board The Savery, this was the only way they would be able to collect intelligence. Even all of Endymion's power and influence as the High King would mean nothing when it came to gaining so much as a scrap of intelligence from the agency.
The newcomer who was holding hands with Jadeite was Eudokia, another powerful psychic that they had managed to scrounge up, who was going to facilitate this audacious plan via her abilities in tandem with Jadeite's. Her particular gift was mastery over the mental, and her talents had been, again, honed through a working relationship with Beryl in recent years.
She could look into people's minds, read their thoughts, her abilities coming close to those of the young Queen Mars herself. Having gotten her as close as they possibly could, she was preparing to use this ability to peer inside the minds of those stationed in the prison wing of The Savery. Of course, such abilities over such a long range was beyond impossible under typical circumstances, which is why she stood on top of an amplifier, powered by an ungodly amount of imperium, that would allow her powers to extend the massive distance required.
"You could run the Capital City for multiple days with all this imperium," Zoisite muttered under his breath, unable to ignore the extreme consumption this endeavor was about to require.
"Are you ready?" Kunzite asked, looking sternly at their prisoner. Aphrodite glumly nodded. "If you try to lie, I'm sure I don't need to tell you what will happen."
"She'd be a true fool to lie with me in the room," Eudokia said, her voice cocky and rough, matching her frame, larger than typical for a woman. "Even if I can't reach into her mind, it's never a good idea to try to lie around someone who has as much experience reading people as me."
"When you're ready," Kunzite said, looking over at Nephrite and Zoisite. "Be ready to load more imperium into the tank if we end up needing it. This could take time."
After a couple beats, the platform beneath Jadeite's and Eudokia's feet started to glow an angry red. The tank full of imperium started to hum as well, their little experiment chewing through energy at an alarming rate even now. "Just be ready," Eudokia instructed Jadeite.
The psychic's skin was starting to ripple as she extended the reach of her abilities a thousandfold. This degree of amplification was not natural, even with the assistance of high technology and tremendous energy, and it was no doubt having negative effects on her body.
A couple secundas passed, Eudokia mentally searching The Savery for a mind she could penetrate. Of course, every single prison guard and staff member was inoculated against psychic penetration, as was every single employee of the agency, so she had to search through the prisoners.
Soon, she had something, and squeezed Jadeite's hand, passing on the images she was getting through her mental connection. Jadeite raised his hand up towards the wall of screens, and after a beat, each individual screen turned on. Each small panel displayed a different color, a wide variety of hues and shades combining to make a modestly detailed, photo-realistic image.
"We've got it!" Nephrite said, eyes widening, sounding quite disbelieving of what was being put up on the wall. It was a fairly simple image, a first-person view of someone sitting in a plain room, metal walls on all sides with a single dim light bulb hanging from a thin string on the ceiling. A piece of paper was taped to the wall, with "P-489151-NV" written on it in large enough font to be clear even with the imperfect image.
Kunzite immediately advanced on the projected image, pointing up towards it. "This has to be one of the cells! I think it works!"
Jadeite nodded, exerting himself as he focused on controlling the many screens. His powers were also being magnified massively in order to control such a wide variety of objects at once, a process that would likely exhaust him beyond the typical limits of a normal person.
The easiest thoughts and memories for a psychic to extract from a mind were the most recent ones. So, in light of keeping the workload on Eudokia as low as possible, she was accessing only the memory being formed at the moment of her intrusion. Or, put more simply, whatever the person was currently looking at. She would be able to see whatever they were seeing, and then pass that image over to Jadeite, who was then reconstructing it on the wall. It was far from an efficient way to peek inside The Savery's many prison cells, but it happened to be the only way that Endymion's generals were able to come up with on such short notice.
"Keep jumping around," Kunzite ordered. "We won't learn anything inside the cells."
The image disappeared, replaced by a new one a beat later, this one even more boring than the last. The invaded prisoner was no doubt laying back on their bed, staring up at the ceiling, for the ceiling was all that could be seen. It was wiped away quickly, before flashing to a view of a plain steel hallway, a few people trickling back and forth, each one wearing a drab grey jumpsuit.
"Alright, prisoners, here we go." Kunzite turned towards Aphrodite, who was staring up at the image on screen. Every beat, the image would change slightly, reflecting the changing view of the person Eudokia was mentally invading. The chained blonde shook her head a couple times.
"Keep jumping around," Kunzite ordered. "We're in the right area now. I'm sure they let the prisoners out of their cells in shifts, so they might be isolated right now."
The image started to shift rapidly, each one a different view of inside The Savery. Every time it was clear that the picture carried no important information for the mission at hand, it was quickly wiped away in favor of a brand new one. Occasionally, an image would come in from a more communal area, with clusters of prisoners and even the occasional guard, and these would linger for longer, giving Aphrodite a chance to study it before shaking her head.
Secundas ticked by, each image that failed to produce a response from Aphrodite raising the distressing possibility that they might have done all this work and gotten this far for nothing. Nobody dared voice those concerns yet, however.
Finally, one of the constructed images showed the inside of a communal eating hall, with several long tables lined up across a large room, many seats occupied by imperium smuggling offenders. She perked up, her good hand lifting up enough to point at the left side of the image.
"There!" she called out. One of the prisoners on screen was a female wearing a black cap. "Zoom in on her!"
The image updated, this time focusing entirely on the inmate that Aphrodite indicated, offering far more detail on her face.
"That's her! Isis." She nodded. "I'm sure of it."
"Isis had hair," Kunzite said, turning his narrowing gaze on Aphrodite. "A lot of hair. I don't see any hair under that cap."
"I can tell by the face," Aphrodite said, sounding very confident. "It's her. They probably cut it so she wouldn't stand out so much."
Kunzite studied her for a moment, but voiced no further suspicions, instead turning towards the screens. "Prisoner number, P-091554-NV," he said, reciting the text written on the front and shoulders of her jumpsuit. "Mark it down."
"I'm not lying," Aphrodite said, defensively with an unmistakable hint of fear as well. "Just...just let me go when this is over. Like we talked about."
Kunzite grumbled, glancing over to Zoisite, who was writing down the prisoner number.
"Alright, one more to find on The Savery," Kunzite said. "We'll fly closer to Venus before we try to find the two being kept there."
"
Endymion closed his eyes, flushing Kunzite's words of warning from his mind purposefully, feeling them start to chew at his confidence just a bit. Of all the reckless and dangerous things Endymion had decided to do in the last couple of years, Kunzite had probably argued against this one more than any other. Were it not for the intense time crunch that they were under, which had necessitated Endymion quickly putting his foot down, he probably would have argued against this idea much more. And the High King could not deny, for as much as he felt like he could control the situation, this was certainly a reckless maneuver.
Clad in the slightly ostentatious outfit that identified him as Tuxedo Mask, face covering and all, Endymion was seated in the corner of a large, luxury hotel suite, just rented out for the evening, in the very heart of Thybulle, a wealthy district in the lower hemisphere of Earth. His right leg rested on his left knee, his arms resting on the armrests on either side of him. He was trying to exude a calm that he wasn't completely feeling, doing all he could to project that he was comfortable and had no concerns.
He was as vulnerable as he had ever been. His four generals were a good three city blocks away, not close enough to intervene if things spiraled out of control. It was necessary, given who they were dealing with, to not give even the slightest hint of a trap or deception. All Endymion had to protect himself was his intelligence and wit.
If he spent too much time thinking about that, he'd definitely lose his edge.
The ornate wooden door across the room cracked open, Endymion tensing up for a moment before forcing himself to relax again. Even a little bit of tension might have been enough to light the powder keg.
Two large men, comparable to Kunzite in stature, entered the suite, quickly fanning out to the sides. A third, similarly-sized man came in, locking eyes with Endymion and advancing towards him, a stern menace in his gait and stance.
"You stay right there," he instructed, pointing right at the disguised High King. "Don't move."
"Wasn't planning on it," Endymion said.
"You better be the only one in this room. Like we agreed on," he said. "You better."
"Last time I checked," he replied, finding a calm coming over him as he got closer and closer to the danger. Now that a last-moment change of mind was out of the question, he almost felt at ease without forcing himself to pretend.
The three spent a couple secundas investigating the room, verifying that they had the advantage in numbers. The one who had entered last never took his eyes off 'Tuxedo Mask', clearly aware of the man's reputation and concerned about what he was capable of. Endymion stared him down from behind his mask, giving the goon every reason to believe he was someone to fear.
"We're good!" he finally called out, turning to look over his shoulder as he did so. A few beats later, he had to again suppress a burst of tension. The one he actually wanted to meet with, the one with the ability that might actually be able to get him out of trouble, was next to enter.
Strikingly tall, particularly for a woman, Beryl was extremely eye-catching, with her massive collection of red hair that fell down below her knees contrasting with her pale skin. There was a sharpness to her face as well, enough to make her stand out in a crowd. It was no wonder that the atypically-talented psychic typically stayed out of public, preferring to work from the shadows and only emerge when she could control the situation. Her exposing herself even to this degree, coming to an expensive hotel in the middle of the night, was something that was only happening because the opportunity to meet 'Tuxedo Mask' was too enticing to pass up.
"So, he does exist," Beryl said, pausing to absorb the sight. If it wasn't for all the stories, she would have found the sight comical, a grown man in a child's costume. "Or are you a pretender, dressing up to draw me out, so you can take your shot at me?"
"You already know who I am," Endymion answered. "Or else you wouldn't be here."
"I have my doubts," Beryl said playfully, advancing on him. "Tuxedo Mask must be extremely smart to have lasted this long and to have had this much success in the criminal underworld. You, however, have agreed to a meeting with the most dangerous person in the galaxy, by yourself, relinquishing all control of the situation to me. That's not smart."
"You're looking at the most dangerous person in the galaxy right now," Endymion countered. "And I'm in complete control of the situation. I wouldn't be here otherwise."
"Oh?" Beryl said, genuinely curious.
Steeling himself, Endymion reached his hands up slowly towards his head. All three of Beryl's guards quickly reached towards their waists, Beryl immediately raised her right hand up behind her, motioning for them to ease up. Endymion knocked his top hat off with his right hand, letting it tumble to the floor, as his left hand pulled his mask up over his head. It soon joined the hat on the floor, leaving the High King's identity unveiled.
Beryl blinked a few times, unable to hide her shock and surprise as Endymion revealed himself. After a few beats, however, a smile spread across her face as the revelation hit her. "Oh, my," she said. "I had many theories on the truth behind Tuxedo Mask, but none were anywhere close to as good as this."
"What the—"
"I don't recall paying you to voice your opinion!" Beryl snapped over her shoulder, silencing one of her bodyguards before he could finish saying whatever had popped into his mind.
"Take some time to accept what your eyes tell you if you need it," Endymion said. "But I'm here to do business."
Beryl recomposed herself. "Your Highness. Looks like somebody found things a little boring in the palace."
She continued approaching him, undeterred by the sudden revelation after the initial shock wore off. She still carried herself like someone full of confidence, as if this meeting was still to be taken at face value.
"I knew today was going to be a big opportunity for me, but I had no idea I'd have the High King of Earth in the palm of my hand," she said, now just a half-dozen steps away from him, her voice now even thicker with a playful menace. "What could possibly have possessed you to think this was a good idea?"
"Why isn't it a good idea?" Endymion asked.
She sighed. "You've got a lot to learn, Your Majesty. I don't know how you're not aware of this, but the very Kingdom that you rule over has labeled me a criminal mastermind, a danger to society, a terrorist. So, why shouldn't I just take you into captivity right this very moment and ransom you for every last cred in that treasury of yours?"
"It's not in your best interests," Endymion answered simply, voice getting deeper and rougher.
"I don't know," she said mockingly. "That much money would go a loooong way."
"You'd never get to spend it," Endymion warned. "Trust me, Beryl, you want me leaving this meeting happy and healthy. Perhaps more importantly, you want me leaving this meeting with a respect and admiration for you and your work. If I don't, then your little reign as a 'criminal mastermind' won't last much longer."
"I'm not following, Your Majesty," Beryl said. "But I have to say, I'm genuinely curious to know how you came to that conclusion."
"If I'm not happy with the way this meeting goes, then one way or another, I go back to the palace with a new military operation in mind. Every squadron, every unit, every ship, every resource on Earth, full-time focus on the elimination of the dangerous terrorist Beryl. I have a feeling I can get a couple other Kingdoms to join in on it as well. You might be strong, Beryl. Might have a very unique and dangerous talent. And I don't doubt you've used the last year to construct an impressive force of loyal followers. But if I turn the full might of my Kingdom on you, or perhaps the full might of half the galaxy on you, how long do you think you'll last?"
"There's a lot of empty space, you know," Beryl said, absentmindedly sweeping her right arm up so it was pointed upward for a moment. "A girl can hide for a long time if she needs to."
"Sounds like a miserable way to live," Endymion pointed out. "Especially since you seem to be building a syndicate of real substance right now. Do you want to survive, or thrive? Either way, it's a hell of a risk to take. If I decide to declare an all-out war on you, one way or another, you lose."
"Then maybe I don't let you go back to your palace," Beryl menaced, still sounding amused and playful despite the serious subject matter. "Maybe I dispose of you after I squeeze whatever money I can out of your Kingdom."
Endymion smirked. "Let's play that out logically, Beryl. If I'm gone, my wife takes the throne, and if you know anything about my wife, you know she'll be grief-stricken beyond all measure, and will seek immediate retribution. The campaign she'll launch to kill you might be more ferocious than mine would be. You see?"
"You say this as if you're prepared to give up your life. As if it holds no value to you," Beryl countered. "Are you?"
"That's not the question you should be thinking about," Endymion said, slowly tilting his head to the right. "Seems to me this is all up to you now. So, are you? That's the important question."
Beryl's gaze flashed down towards the floor for a moment, Endymion's overt warning having caused at least some hesitation on her part.
"So. Your mission tonight is to keep me happy," Endymion stated. "You and everything you've built hinges on it. On the other hand, if you succeed, you might just have a friend in the highest place imaginable. How nice would it be to be owed a favor by the most powerful man in the galaxy, if you ever find yourself in a difficult situation?"
"I don't know what's more surprising," Beryl said. "You being Tuxedo Mask, or you being...likeable." She grinned. "So much for the spoiled little shit born into a Kingdom that I was just chomping at the bit to despise. I almost like you."
"We all have our secrets," Endymion said, glancing towards her three bodyguards, happy to see that they seemed to have eased up. "So, I'm here to talk business. Let me know when you decide what you're here to do."
"Well, I am a native of Earth. Who am I to turn down a chance to serve my Kingdom?" she said sarcastically. "What do you need?"
"There are four people being held in prison by the Galactic Imperium Agency right now. They're all alive. I need that changed."
Beryl practically giggled. "Oh, I think I really like you."
"
"Mariner Detention Center is easy. Well, relatively speaking," Beryl said, curled up on the bottom right corner of the massive four-poster bed. She had a large, flat tablet in her hand. "Typical prison, inmates are always in communal areas unless it's night. Or if they're being punished. The Savery's a little harder, they use shifts. But still doable."
"Fly the ship to about here," one of her henchmen said, holding his own tablet up in front of her, depicting a set of coordinates in the middle of space. "This is as close as you're going to be able to get to the prison wing without setting off alarms." In light of the meeting going peacefully, her protectors had turned into assistants, helping her put together a plan to fulfill Endymion's desires.
"Ah," Beryl said, craning her neck over towards Endymion, who hadn't moved from his spot in the corner of the room. "I will be needing a massive amount of refined imperium to make this work. I trust you can provide?"
Endymion nodded curtly.
"Alright, once we take care of the two targets on The Savery, we just pop into orbit around Venus, should be a breeze. I'm sure less than half of the inmates there have been inoculated against my abilities." Beryl nodded to herself. "That's all there is to it."
"One thing with that," Endymion chimed in, needing only these few words to quickly absorb all the attention in the room. "These four inmates all need to be put down in a particular window of time."
She shrugged. "Sure. What's the window?"
Endymion held his right hand up, index and middle finger extended up towards the sky. "Two secundas."
"You're joking," Beryl said, sounding amused.
"Afraid not," Endymion responded, face hardening just a bit. "All four need to be dealt with within forty-eight beats of each other."
"I've taken leaks that took longer than forty-eight beats!" One of Beryl's henchmen argued.
"That's nice, but you're not being paid for your opinions," Beryl said coolly, silencing him immediately. She cleared her throat, turning back towards Endymion. "Are you just trying to make it a challenge for me?"
"Those four inmates are the most valuable treasures in all the universe, as far as the agency is concerned. They have information that could end the biggest manhunt in the history of this galaxy, and provide the agency with enough imperium to keep them in power for centuries. The only reason why they're letting those inmates in communal prison areas at all is that they believe there's no risk of losing them. The moment we kill one, they'll realize they're wrong, and move the rest of them into permanent, round-the-clock solitary confinement, with the only people allowed anywhere near them being those who are immune to your abilities. The opportunity will be lost forever. So, this is the only way."
Beryl pushed herself off the corner of the bed, quickly stalking over towards the High King. "You're already asking me to exercise my powers over a distance many times greater than any I have tried so far."
"I will provide any amount of imperium you require, as I said," Endymion assured her.
"That's not the only consideration here, you know," she protested. "Look, Your Highness, what you're asking me to do, no problem. It can be done. But this degree of difficulty you're putting on it?" She shook her head. "Come on."
"I need all four gone for this to mean anything to me," Endymion stated. "My terms are my terms, and they are not negotiable."
"And what if I told you it can't be done?" Beryl asked daringly, stopping just a couple steps away from him, her significant height looming over him as he was seated.
"It can be done," Endymion insisted coldly. "If what you're trying to tell me is that you're not capable of doing it, then say that, so I can go find someone who is."
Beryl's face flickered down into something that almost looked sad at this barb, one of the first times tonight that she had lost her air of smug confidence. It felt like the temperature of the room had dropped.
A couple awkward beats later, however, she smiled again, chuckling.
"So, that's the way we're playing?" she asked. "Fine. But I might end up with your whole treasury after all when this is done, because this is going to cost you."
"You'll be paid well." Endymion got to his feet, reaching into his right-side tuxedo pocket to remove a golden pocket watch, checking it. "I have nine and a half minutas to sunrise. I suggest you use them to get some sleep. Tomorrow's going to be a very exhausting day for you, based on my experience working with psychics."
He took a half-step to move around her before Beryl raised her right arm up towards him. "I'm not a big sleeper. Why don't we...hang around a bit?"
"I think we've discussed everything we need to discuss," Endymion said. "I'm not seeing any point to that."
She shrugged. "I don't know. Does everything we do have to accomplish some rigid goal?" She began to slowly circle him, taking graceful steps, head twisting to keep him firmly in her field of vision. "I just...I'm so fascinated by this. This is what you do when the spotlight isn't on you? Just...bring the agency to their knees as a hobby?"
Endymion couldn't resist letting his all-business demeanor drop just a bit, giving Beryl a small smile.
"You know, I always thought that if, someway, somehow, I had a chance to meet you, I'd just love to put the business end of my scepter upside your head. You just seemed like everything I despise in this universe, all distilled into one person. But now that I know what's behind that curtain, I...I kinda want to get to know you a bit better."
"Don't try to get me into trouble," Endymion replied, not without a hint of playfulness in his tone.
"You're the most wanted man who's ever lived, I don't think I could get you into more trouble than you're already in," Beryl countered. "How about it?"
He tilted his head, almost as if he was thinking about it, before making a beeline back to the hotel room's door back out into the main hallway. "Let's keep this professional."
"Aw." She turned to watch him depart, quickly glancing over towards her three protectors, not motioning them to intervene. "Why'd you start doing all this?"
"I'll be in contact in the morning concerning the imperium and payment," Endymion said, purposefully ignoring her inquiries. "I want this done today."
"Come on, I'm doing all this for you, can't you at least tell me how you ended up here? I'm dying to know how this happened," she continued to prod. "Why are you smuggling imperium?"
"Night," he said sternly, continuing to put distance between him and Beryl, quite happy to keep at least a few things hidden from her.
"
"I love what you've done here, by the way. This place is the perfect size, too." Endymion, kneeling down in the middle of the room, craned his neck around the spacious chamber, taking in the pastel color scheme and modern design that utilized a lot of smooth edges and corners. It was the first time he had visited his father's retirement home since he had first moved into it several cycles ago, when it was largely neglected and dull. Since then, Kasios had done a lot of work to make it worthy of a former High King, and had spent almost all of his time not on The Savery living in the Mercurian estate.
"I thought it'd be too small, after spending my whole life in the palace. So used to having more space than I could ever even consider using. But this is actually great, you know. Better, even. Far more appropriate," Kasios said, watching his son play with his granddaughter in the middle of the open floor area from his seat on the couch.
"I'd wager a good forty people could comfortably live here, dad," Endymion said, picking Chibiusa up by her sides and lifting her up into the air as he stood up. The small princess spread her arms out to the sides, like an airplane, as Endymion lifted her up above his head. "I don't know if appropriate is quite the right word."
"Oh, don't be like that," Kasios said, face wrinkling a bit. "This estate isn't even one of the ten biggest on Mercury."
"Oh yes." The elder Serenity entered the room, eyes lighting up at the sight of Endymion holding his daughter up high. "Kasios made sure this place would rank eleventh, just so he could say that."
Kasios clicked his tongue a couple times, but laughed nevertheless. "Aw, you guys aren't gonna get me down today. Not with what's going on at work."
"
Beryl slipped the bottom point of her scepter into the small hole right by her feet, letting the silver rod with large ruby perched atop it drop a couple finger lengths in before gripping it firmly in both hands. She took in a deep, cleansing breath, steadying her stance.
"One secunda to optimal distance," one of her underlings called out, sitting in front of an array of computer terminals. They were the only two ones in the room, the main cabin of a small A-class starship, currently riding orbital forces between The Savery and Venus.
"Is the amplifier ready?" Beryl asked, glancing one last time around the barren and plain cabin. The ship was purposefully unremarkable and generic, so that even if someone did see it it couldn't possibly come back to Beryl or her organization. Nothing but metallic walls and grated floors, with an elevated platform for her to stand on.
"Yes. Activating coolant now." He pressed a couple buttons, and a powerful gust of cold wind started to hit Beryl's back. "Ten beats."
The ruby atop her scepter began to glow faintly, feeding her tremendous psychic powers into the amplifier beneath her feet. Massive amounts of imperium were in the cargo bay below her, fueling her abilities to a range thousands of times greater than she had ever attempted to use them before.
"Optimal distance achieved," the man announced. Immediately, Beryl's eyes started to glow an angry red, her scepter ruby following suit. She focused her mind in on the massive, cube-shaped space station a distance away, racing to find an appropriate mind to invade.
"
"We've got those girls competing against each other for who gets to tell us about Tuxedo Mask!" Kasios said jovially. "Buyer's market and everything. All four of them are ready to flip, we've just got to make a deal."
"Okay, here we go!" Endymion said, running from one side of the room to the other, Chibiusa still held high above his head in both hands, arms out to the sides. She was laughing and giggling as her father helped her 'fly' around the room.
"So close to ending this case once and for all," Kasios said. "Maybe I'll actually be able to relax for once. Feel like I haven't truly been at ease since this whole thing started." He looked over at the former Queen Serenity. "What's up with her? Your daughter, she okay?"
"Oh, she's fine, just using the lavatory," Serenity said casually, glancing over at Endymion for a brief beat as she said so.
The High King was still parading his daughter around, making a wide turn to start jogging the other way with her up in the air.
"
Solon was about to lift a spoon full of a murky, thick green soup to his lips, when his hand suddenly stopped lifting the eating utensil when it was a finger length away. He froze in place, not even breathing for a moment, before his body suddenly went rigid and his eyes started to glow a faint red.
The tall, well-built redheaded man was perhaps the definition of being in over his head. Six years prior, the Jupiter-native had been tempted by the promise of easy riches and had joined some old academy friends of his in a scheme to help smuggle a few hundred libras of black market imperium through orbital security. Of course, the promise of easy riches was about all the group had thought about before getting involved, and none of them had the savvy, cunning, or ruthlessness to succeed with even dipping their toes into the water of the criminal underworld. Solon had been the only one of the group to survive their attempt, and had gotten nothing but a fifteen year sentence on board The Savery for his troubles. There was really nothing else that he had done before in his life that should have put him in a place like this for most of his prime years. He wasn't a violent or mean person at all.
But, in a matter of beats, who Solon was held absolutely no bearing at all on his actions, for someone else was now in control.
He stood up, robotically turning to his right. He was in the cafeteria room with perhaps three dozen other inmates, all of them meandering their way through mediocre meals in the noisy, dimly-lit communal room. Down at the other side of the long, grey table, Isis was chewing on a loaf of bread. Solon didn't know her in the slightest, and had never spent so much as a single moment of his life thinking about her. You never would have guessed that, however, as he marched over towards her purposefully, moving with the hurried strut of a man on a mission.
Isis thought she had nothing to be afraid of. She had very much intentionally been assigned to the non-violent inmates section of the prison, in an attempt to make sure she was in no danger of being killed as the agency grilled her for information. Perhaps because of that knowledge, her senses and instincts were a little dormant right now, and Solon's sharp footfalls just blended into the general noisy ambiance around her.
Wasting no time, Solon got behind Isis and wrapped his arms around her head, hugging it tightly with strength that he didn't typically possess. With a massive twist of his body, he ripped her head to the left, a massive crack and sharp cry of pain signifying a very visceral snapping of her neck.
Just like that, it was over, her body limply falling to the floor at Solon's feet. The moment the deed was done, Solon regained control of himself, eyes going dull again just in time for every single inmate in the area to stare at him in confusement and wonder.
He looked down, mystified and shocked by the sight of the corpse, just as the chaos of a budding prison riot started.
"
Endymion bobbed the large green dragon puppet up and down in front of Chibiusa, right hand lodged deep into the large hole on the dragon's bottom. The tiny Princess, about as tall as the puppet, jumped forward and embraced it in a large hug, still laughing non-stop as she played with her father.
"Hey, be careful, you don't want to teach her that dragons are friendly," Kasios said jokingly as Endymion bobbed the puppet around in front of her. "She'll try to hug a real one."
"I'll take my chances," Endymion said, using the dragon to tackle Chibiusa to the ground.
"
Inanna repetitively lifted herself up and down using only her arm muscles, pulling herself up on the horizontal metal bar, then quickly allowing herself to drop back down so her feet were dangling just a couple finger lengths above the ground. A handful of other inmates aboard The Savery were also utilizing the basic exercise equipment, lifting weights and stretching out on padded mats. Even these basic amenities were a privilege extended only to the non-violent felons, as even a small weight could become a deadly weapon in the wrong hands. So Inanna had no reason to believe she was in any danger.
A raven-haired man suddenly stormed into the room behind the former Venusian lieutenant, practically jogging towards the shelf of light dumbbells. The great rush he seemed to be in was beneath notice for the few who observed him, and his red eyes were easily assumed to be a trick of the light. Beyond that, he was known to the inmates as a relatively gentle and reserved person, rarely emotional and never violent. In fact, Nereus hadn't even directly involved himself in imperium smuggling in the first place, but was actually serving an eight-year sentence for becoming an accessory to a small operation when he attempted to hide his son from the authorities. So even as he picked up two of the dumbbells by the cushioned handles and turned toward Inanna, nobody suspected a thing.
As the pretty blonde hefted herself upward yet again, Nereus hurled one of the weights out of his right hand, launching it with a force he had never before been capable of, sending it right towards the back of Inanna's head. He was marching towards her before the projectile even made impact.
The crushing impact, which sent her swinging forward and crashing to the ground, was probably enough to finish the deed by itself. A blinding pain spread from the impact point on her skull and she saw stars, fading into unconsciousness. Perhaps thankfully, she didn't even have the opportunity to see Nereus standing over her, holding the other dumbbell over his head, preparing to make sure the job was finished with another smashing blow.
"
"It's not good to be upside down like that, it makes the blood rush to your head," Serenity chided, nevertheless looking amused as Endymion held Chibiusa by her right ankle, letting her body dangle.
"I feel like that's a myth spread by mothers to get their children to stop horsing around," Endymion said, watching as Chibiusa waved her arms around, laughing as she struggled to wriggle free from her father's grip. "Are cartwheels supposed to be bad for you now?"
Chibiusa's giggling laughter became cackling howls as Endymion started to playfully tickle her foot that he had captured in his grip, which prompted her to start to struggle even harder. After a few moments of this, however, Endymion did lay her out on the carpeted floor, acknowledging the possibility of holding an upside down position eventually putting a strain on her body.
"
Astarte planted her feet as hard as she could against the concrete floor beneath her shoes, but wasn't able to stop herself as the suddenly-aggressive inmate pushed her down the short corridor. She also punched at his face and clawed at his hands, trying to get him to let her go by using every trick in the book afforded to her by her training on Venus, but found them surprisingly ineffective. Even against men, she was used to being able to win fights, but this one was acting entirely indifferent to the pain that she had to have been causing her.
The Mariner Detention Center was the finest prison on Venus, a place for the most dangerous and detestable of criminals. Under the reign of the current King and Queen, there had been a sizable uptick in the center's population, and the recently uncovered coup attempt had taken it to another level. The agency was only interested in those who were directly involved in the imperium smuggling, so anyone else discovered to be involved had a very good chance of ending up here. Two of Venus's former lieutenants had been placed here, again, among the prisoners who were regarded as low-risk and non-violent.
This inmate, who Astarte had never met before, was most certainly indulging in violence on her, driving her all the way back into a metal railing, meant to protect people from falling off a ledge created by a stone staircase going down.
Just when Astarte was starting to maybe get herself in a position where she could fight her attacker off enough to escape, he managed to roughly slam her head into the rail, stunning her and wiping all thoughts of defense out of her mind for a moment. That was all he needed to flip her limber body over the rail and send it plummeting, head-first, down to the floor below.
As Astarte fell to her death, the possessed inmate hurdled the rail to follow behind her, just to assure the job was finished.
"
"Oh, she's got her mother's tickle spots!" Endymion teased as he played his fingers across Chibiusa's covered belly, drawing peals of childish laughter from the toddler, who was still laid out flat on the floor, now kicking and punching the air randomly in response to Endymion's stimulus.
"What about her grandmother's?" Kasios playfully made a claw with his right hand, looking over towards the elder Serenity, who was now seated to his left.
"We'll just never know, will we?" Serenity said, edging away a little bit from the former High King and giving him a warning look. "It'll be a mystery. Forever."
Endymion finally stopped tickling Chibiusa, instead grabbing her sides and lifting her up as he got to his feet. She was panting, cheeks red, endurance being tested by the extended play session with her father. Endymion pulled her in towards him, kissing her forehead.
"
Anat's eyes flashed open, head tilting up to look at the door of her cold, grey, bland prison cell, from which she heard a loud and repeated flurry of knocks. If only she had any idea that her three fellow imprisoned lieutenants had just been brutally murdered in the last secunda, she would have had the good sense to be suspicious, but of course, there was no way for her to have any idea what was happening outside of her cell right now.
She was sitting square in the middle of the rectangular room, legs crossed, just pulled out of a little meditation session by the knocking. Assuming that a guard was here to deliver a message or perhaps take her somewhere, she quickly got to her feet, approaching the steel door.
The tiny twinge of suspicion in the back of her head, owing to how abrasive the knock had been, was ignored for just a beat too long. As she stood right in front of the door, waiting for the guard on the other side to pull it open, the mid-door slot was suddenly pushed open.
A plastic bottle of a clear liquid was roughly shoved through the slot, mouth pointing in towards Anat. Before she could react, the bottle was squeezed down hard, popping the cap off and splashing her lower half with the contents. Anat jumped back in shock, looking down at the fluid that now drenched her jumpsuit and the floor beneath her bare feet.
Instinctively, she backed away from the door, quickly getting away from whoever had just sprayed her. As she inhaled, the strong, noxious scent hit her, and she cringed hard. A second identical bottle was shoved partially through the door slot, quickly spewing its contents into the room as well, soaking the room even more.
Anat, now with her back against the wall furthest from the door, caught a second large whiff of the foul-smelling liquid. Just as she was starting to recognize the stench from the chemical that was used in the prison's laundry room, a piece of cloth that was aflame got shoved through the door slot. In the blink of an eye, the large puddle of the chemical was on fire.
She tried to scramble up the wall, fingers searching for little holds and gaps in the flat surface that she could use to get away, but there was nothing for her to gain leverage with. Her frantic backpedaling across the room had caused little trails of the chemical to run across the floor, across which the flames zipped towards her.
And just like that, her entire lower half was consumed by a roaring chemical fire, each of the hundreds of points of contact on her legs causing agonizing pain. With nowhere to even try to roll the flames out, given most of the cell was on fire, all she could do was scream, mindlessly running around the room as she started to succumb to the flames.
"
Queen Serenity entered the room, head bowed a bit as she purposely tried to keep herself small and beneath notice. With how awkward everything was with her family right now, she honestly would have preferred to just stay in the bathroom the entire visit, but knew that the questions she'd have to answer later would be even worse.
Endymion, holding Chibiusa out in front of him at arm's length, both hands tucked under her armpits to support her, gave her a brief acknowledgement with a glance but otherwise drew no attention to her. She was at least a tiny bit thankful for that, although it did nothing to undo the general unhappiness the young Queen felt at every single secunda of the day.
"You think I should move here?" The older Serenity asked, looking around the room. "Certainly enough space, it's nicer than the Moon Palace. Chibiusa could spend more time with her grandfather, until Serenity's gotten over—"
Endymion loudly cleared his throat, getting his mother-in-law to jump a bit in her seat and twist her whole body around. "Oh!" she exclaimed, seeing her daughter had finally come out, blushing red.
The Queen just gave her a passive, wan smile that lasted maybe half a beat and gave a quick motion with her right hand to indicate that she wasn't upset.
"I could go for that," Kasios said casually. "Won't get boring around here if you're around."
"I thought boring was the point," Endymion said, bending down to set Chibiusa on the floor, letting her walk slowly over towards the couch that her grandparents were seated on. "Like, you wanted it to be boring here to offset your work with the agency."
"You'll understand when you're my age," Kasios assured him, reclining back slightly. "Anyway, Serenity, say the word and I'll clear out some rooms for you upstairs."
The communicator disc on the table right by the right side of the couch started vibrating, prompting Kasios to start scooting over towards it.
"I might just have to take you up on that," she said, again looking all around the large chamber. "Close to the ocean, too, but no scent. I love that."
"Oh yeah, the ocean being right there is wonderful," Kasios agreed, pulling a small white earpiece off the communicator disc and putting it into his right ear. "Kasios here."
Endymion, eyes tracking his daughter as she got to her destination of the primary couch and started trying to drag herself onto the cushion next to her grandmother, couldn't help but peek over towards Kasios as he took the call. He tried to not give away his interest, but wasn't able to entirely stop himself.
Kasios's relaxed and eased expression quickly hardened and wrinkled. "W-what? What? What do you mean?"
Endymion forced himself to take a few steps towards where Chibiusa was currently fighting to get up on the couch cushions, ears just waiting for more audio cues from his father.
"What?! That...that's impossible!" In a single rapid motion, Kasios kicked up from the couch, getting to his feet, nearly launching himself into a face-first fall to the floor. "How...you're shitting me!"
The elder Serenity, already on edge thanks to the contagious nature of Kasios's panic, gasped before gently clapping her hands over Chibiusa's ears. "Kasios!"
The retired royal, however, suddenly had no mind for anything other than whatever news was being fed into his ear. He stormed across the room, heading for the main hallway. "Just...okay, I'm headed up there right now! Just...I'll be there as soon as I can!"
"Kasios?!" The elder Serenity said, her annoyance quickly making way for concern as he practically sprinted away.
He shoved the earpiece and disc into his pockets. "S-something happened, I have to go!" he shouted over his shoulder. The room had immediately become thick with tension as Kasios departed, leaving behind a great confusion.
It was many beats of awkward silence before anyone did anything beyond ponder what had caused Kasios so much distress, the elder Serenity finally pulling Chibiusa into her lap and looking around.
"Um...he...he won't be back for awhile, I guess," she muttered. "Should we just go?"
"He seemed pretty upset, uh...I think I'll stay," Endymion said. "M-Maybe, uh...I think he could use someone to talk to when he gets back."
"He might not be back for days," she pointed out. "Who knows what happened to make him act like that?"
"Y-yeah," Endymion acknowledged. "I just...I'll stay until the evening, call him if he's not back yet." He nodded. "I just want to be there for him, the...the servants around here, I don't want him to come back to just them. If he's not coming back tonight, I'll...I'll leave." He looked over at his wife. "Sweetie, can you head back to the Moon Palace with your mother and Chibiusa?"
The Queen had the good sense to immediately suspect ulterior motives of her husband the moment Endymion suggested that he stay behind, and her stony glare towards him made it clear that she was starting to put the pieces together. However, she nodded at his suggestion. "Sure," she said curtly.
"Okay, I...you all go on," Endymion said, sitting himself down on the end of the couch. "I don't have anything in particular to do today, this is...this is fine."
The three generations of Serenity turned to leave the room, their pace and demeanor far less hurried than Kasios's had been, leaving the High King to wait by himself.
"
"It's done."
Kunzite blinked rapidly, needing to put at least a little effort into not actually thinking about the ramifications of what those two words actually meant. Not to mention the ramifications of him taking a call from Beryl, thus participating in a co-operative task between her and the very Earth Kingdom that had declared her a dangerous terrorist.
"You're sure?" Kunzite said.
"Yes," Beryl affirmed.
Quickly, Kunzite killed the connection, seeing no value in keeping it open so much as a single beat longer than it needed to be, and then immediately yanked the top half of the casing of the disc off.
"It leaked!" Zoisite called out from behind Kunzite, holding a large tablet up in his hands. "It just hit the breaking news, check it out!" He leaned forward over the backrest of the couch and held the tablet up in front of Kunzite's face.
The four generals were gathered in their communal recreation room, Jadeite laying down on a couch adjacent to Kunzite's, eyes closed and body limp due to exhaustion from his extended use of the psychic amplifier. By all rights, he should have been somewhere quiet and isolated, but he had insisted on being in the room when the generals discovered whether or not their crazy scheme had actually worked.
Kunzite took the briefest of moments to scan the tablet, noting a headline of PRISON RIOT AT MARINER DETENTION CENTER, TWO DEAD before turning his attention back to the communicator disc. With the casing open, he started stabbing the tip of a metal screwdriver into the circuitry and chips, breaking as much of the internal workings of the disc as he could.
"That was fast," Nephrite grunted, checking the tablet screen from behind Zoisite.
"Doesn't necessarily mean anything," Kunzite said, tempering expectations slightly. "Beryl could have knocked off the wrong person, or Aphrodite could have fed us incorrect information."
"Be positive."
Kunzite, Nephrite, and Zoisite all looked over at their colleague, still splayed out messily on the couch with his eyes closed, who had just managed two quiet, hushed words.
"I thought you were asleep," Kunzite muttered. "Anyway, keep watching the news. If that story leaked, they'll probably yank out the deaths on The Savery."
"You think there's any way they'll actually publish the identities of the murdered?" Nephrite asked as Zoisite resumed zooming around through assorted screens on the tablet. "That's what we need?"
"Not even," Kunzite said. "Don't put it past the agency to push out fake information in order to try to protect their witnesses. I'll feel safe the moment a cycle has passed without us being charged and arrested by the agency."
"
"You're still here?"
Endymion looked up and twisted his head to the right to look at his father, who had just entered the lounge room from the main hallway. Even with the distance between the two, as well as the dimmed lights, Endymion could make out Kasios's hair was a touch messy and he had a slight hunch in his posture that wasn't usually there.
"Uh, y-yeah," Endymion said, still seated on the couch in the center of the room, leaning forward, elbows resting on his thighs. A tall, green bottle with a red label on it was on the coffee table in front of him, along with two glasses and a closed canister of ice.
"How long was I gone?" Kasios asked, looking around the room in what looked like a bit of a daze, as if the retired royal was in a bit of a stupor.
"Oh, I...I knew you'd be gone for awhile," Endymion assured him. "I sent the girls home."
"O-oh." Kasios slowly made his way over towards his son, still carrying an unmistakable gloomy aura. "Why'd you stay?"
"Ummm…" Endymion grimaced. "I got the sense something bad happened. I didn't want you to come home and not have anyone to talk to about it."
"Oh, uh, I...I don't think I really want to talk about it to anyone," Kasios said darkly, trying and failing to sound dismissive. "T-thank you, though. Uh, yeah, thank you, it's appreciated, you didn't have to do that."
"I kind of felt like I did," Endymion said.
Kasios pointed at the bottle as he came up next to his son. "That's not a bad idea, though, I will take you up on that."
Immediately, Endymion opened the ice container and started scooping cubes of frozen water into the glasses.
"Something...something bad did happen though, didn't it?" Endymion pried, filtering everything he said before saying it to make sure nothing could possibly raise suspicion.
"Oh, y-yeah," Kasios said, sitting down heavily next to his son, grabbing the bottle and popping the cork out of the top. "Not even bothering trying to deny that."
"I saw the news," Endymion muttered. "I think I already know."
Kasios's face wrinkled up in annoyance. "It leaked?!" He growled, tossing the cork across the room in frustration. "Gods...ah, hell, what does it matter?" He shook his head, pouring the drink out in the two glasses Endymion had just prepared. "I shouldn't even care."
Endymion held his tongue, practically holding his breath, hoping that his father might now be on enough of a roll to at least say a few things to confirm how effective his scheme had been.
"Mm. Starting to think I should just retire from this too," Kasios said, taking the filled glass of drink in his right hand. "Maybe I'm not cut out for this either."
"That's not true," Endymion said quietly, turning to his father and giving him a sympathetic look. "Ask anyone else in the galaxy and they'll tell you that's not true."
"Maybe everyone else in the galaxy is wrong," Kasios said, clearly in a decidedly dour mood. "I don't...I really don't know anymore. I've been chasing this guy for...almost two full years now, Endymion. Coming up on two years. I really thought I had seen it all and nothing could phase me, but...this guy, whoever he is, he...the things he does, I don't know. I almost feel like I can't keep up."
"If you can't keep up, then nobody in the galaxy could either," Endymion assured him, sipping from his drink before returning his focus back to his father.
"Maybe so. I think that's the problem," he said, smiling bitterly. "No, no, I think you're right, that's...that's what I'm afraid of." He sighed. "When I got up there today, and saw what he had done, the...the stuff that went through my mind." He rubbed his forehead. "The stuff that's still in my mind, the whole way back here, it's...I don't know."
"It'll be okay," Endymion assured him. "I'm sure today was...tough on morale, but there'll be other opportunities."
He gave a bitter laugh. "Yeah, more opportunities. More opportunities for him to find creative and absurd ways to stay two steps ahead no matter what we do, I…" he groaned, reclining back against the back of the couch. "Endymion, you're familiar with the concept of...uh, The Devil in certain belief systems, right?"
"Oh, c-certainly," Endymion said timidly, twisting himself around a bit more to give his father his full focus.
"Uh, Lucifer, Beelzebub, Abaddon, most faiths have their own version of...I don't know, this ultimate evil, who causes chaos and destruction." He shrugged. "Or goes around...punching babies, I don't know, just...a being capable of the most depraved acts you can imagine."
Endymion slowly nodded, now genuinely confused as to where his father was going with all this. "...uh-huh."
"Endymion, I...I don't even know if it's hyperbole anymore. This...this guy I've been trying to bring to justice these last two years, I...I'm really starting to think he's The Devil. I think I'm chasing The Devil."
The High King was slightly stunned at this proclamation, as he found Kasios's tone and demeanor to indicate he was at least being somewhat serious.
"It's not just...all the things he's done, too. The things he's managed to pull off that no person should be able to get away with. It's the capacity to be willing to do them. The capacity to ruin lives and destroy people, and not eventually become weighed down under all of it. It really does feel like something...beyond our species." He took a large swig from the glass of drink. "I know I'm an exceptional example of our species, it's...it's not even me bragging. I know our bloodline, I know the accomplishments of our ancestors. I know I'm special. But...what chance do I have against something like that? How can a man possibly expect to stop The Devil?"
Endymion fought with all he had to show nothing outwardly, but internally, he found himself feeling the way he would if he was being paid a compliment. Despite his father's deep depression and morbid words, Endymion noticed the kernel of recognition of brilliance in his lament.
"Maybe...maybe there's just nothing to be done. Maybe I'm just trying to extinguish the sun with a bucket of ice." He shrugged yet again. "What am I supposed to do against that sort of evil?"
Endymion discarded his empty glass on the table, and leaned in towards Kasios. Despite his obvious depression, the former High King leaned forward a bit, accepting Endymion's embrace and pulling him into a hug. Endymion patted him on the back a couple times, favoring actions over words in an attempt to comfort his father.
However, he couldn't conceal his own satisfaction, and with his father no longer able to see it, Endymion did give a small smile of pride.