We do not own "Sailor Moon" nor any of the characters.
SAILOR MOON ETERNAL
"The 6th Season of the Sailor Moon Saga"
By Haruka Kou
Chapter 32: Danger Signals
Calling off all of their other events of the day in their respectively hectic schedules between school and work, the Inner Scouts, Tuxedo Mask and the two cat guardians make it their collective business to find out just exactly what could be such a 'national emergency' that it could call off classes at Crossroads High.
"That's unheard of!" Amy comments. Nodding, the girls so 'fondly' remember that nothing could cancel that school's schedule in the days of their youth.
"Not even the end of the world" Mina jokingly adds, her joviality looked down upon by seven grim faces.
Getting nothing from the school authorities, the gang decides to split up. Darien and Amy begin a search in the college library resources and on the Internet; Mina, Artemis and Lita hit the media scene, in which Mina attested to having some 'inside connections'. (Yeah right, the security guard at the local TV station never even heard of the assistant to the assistant cameraman Mina claimed to know so well.)
So that left poor Serena with bossies Rei and Luna to grill the officials at the mayor's office near City Hall.
"They're never going to let us in there." Serena whines that she and Rei and Luna dock behind a corridor, staring down the long hall at the official looking guard posted before the mayor's fifth floor office.
"Oh, don't you have a rosy attitude today, Serena?" Luna asks sarcastically, as her cat eyes scanned the area keenly.
"Yeah Serena. We're not going to get anywhere if you're always whining like." Rei adds her own nasty whisper.
"Oh Rei! Why are you always so mean to me!?" Even Serena's whispered tears were noisy.
"Shush, Serena! The guard will hear you!" Luna whispers in that Sergeant Major tone that snaps Serena right to attention.
"Now, that's better." Luna says with a nod. "We have to get you two inside to talk to Mayor Ishibara. There is no one else left willing to talk to us about the subject, so we'll just have to take it to the top."
"Maybe I could put a spell on that guard." Rei whips out one of her ever present spell papers.
"No way Rei! I have a better idea!" Serena, wanting to show her snooty bosses she had the kettle on, comes up with the solution of the day, in her mind anyway.
"Luna Pen!" The nymph inside her can't help but giggle with glee as she takes out a pen-like power stick with a pink jeweled top that begins to gleam when she announces:
"TRANSFORM me into a really HOT campaign manager!" The pen of her youth no longer was called upon to increase her growth. (Though admittedly, Serena's lithe body does grow taller, fuller, and a tad bustier – what kind of campaign was she running?!) And Serena reappears in a stars and stripes light show, until she stands before an astonished Rei and Luna, a transformed and really make-up laden short cropped blonde lady.
"So Serena? Don't just stand there looking like a showgirl. Get out there!" Luna orders, clearing her throat, a bit embarrassed that her sweet little Moon Princess could ever be so... well-endowed.
"What about me? What am I supposed to be?" Rei asks, a little disappointed she wasn't as attractively ostentatious as her blonde cohort.
"My gopher of course. Here, Gopher, take this." Serena smiles, enjoying her being Rei's boss for once, as she shoves a briefcase that came along with the outfit into Rei's shocked hands.
"Let's go!" Serena shouts, almost tripping on those 5 inch heels, but catching herself quickly so no one was the wiser.
"Pardon me." The silky Southern accented voice of a sultry high-heeled blonde is all it takes for the guard to stand up straight and take a good gander.
"Is the mayor in there, Handsome?" The put on Southern drawl was darn convincing, as Rei and Luna exchange astonished glances at airhead Serena's instant transformation.
"I - um - ehh -" The male guard stumbles over the words as he tugs at his now hot collar.
"There is no admittance without proper authorization." He recites in a high-pitched, yet unconvincing, voice the dutiful speech.
"Oh, fiddle-dee-dee! We have proper authorization, Sugar." Serena says in her best imitation of a little seductress screen actress (from one of those forever long old Hollywood movies Darien made me watch late into the night!) Even pushing the long fringe hair over her face for effect, she pops her finger up the guard's chest to his neck and onto his cheek, as Raye and Luna's jaws drop simultaneously.
"Don't we?" Serena the vixen asks, her long lashed eyelids batting.
"Who do I say you are?" The smitten guard's corrupted morals made his words rush out hurriedly.
"Just a few concerned citizens, trying to right wrongs and triumph over evil, that's all." Serena huffs her trademark take off line breathily, wishing Darien could see her in action now.
"Right away, lady!" The man fumbles at the doorknob under Serena's femininely persuasive true blue eyes.
"Thank ya kindly, Sugar." Serena blows a goodbye kiss at his side as he opens the door and announces the trio.
"Mr. Mayor, Sir, I have a league of concerned citizens here to discuss important business with you, Sir." The dutiful guard, yet influenced by a woman's wiles, speaks to the tall backed chair behind the desk not facing them.
"Bring them in then, Dan." The mayor's calm voice states as Rei and Luna follow Serena in, and at her disbelief her crazy schemey act actually worked as the disguised girl gives the departing guard a wink as he blushingly retreats.
"Now, pray tell, what can I do for you ladies?" The mayor says, the back of the mayoral chair still to them.
"Well, Mr. Mayor, sir, we've come to ask you -" Serena slows Southern accent is gone with the wind as she looks to Rei for help to pose the question of what's been going on, and then secretly shield from the public their attempts to root it out.
"Why has every school day been cancelled all over Tokyo? Buses, museums, post offices, zoos, anything government run, as well as many businesses, without any explanation. Can you tell us why this is happening here, Mayor Ishibara?" Rei queries as respectively she could and still make her point known to the elder statesman.
"That is... my dear young lady, because today is the day as many people as possible must be relaxing in their homes. And the vibrant young schoolchildren should be permitted the luxury of joining their parents for the Absorption."
His back still turned deliberately to them, Rei suddenly feels her skin begin to crawl, all of her sixth senses raising the hair on the back of her neck.
"Absorption? What's an 'Absorption'? Did I snooze through that class in homeroom...?" Serena asks quizzically, her eyebrows knotted in total misunderstanding.
"Mr. Mayor?" She walks up to the chair, touching the shoulder of the stout little Japanese man known for his kindness and generosity they've seen so many times on television...
"Serena! Watch out! He's not the mayor!" Rei suddenly puts her tensed senses together, and rushes across the room to stop Serena from getting too close to him. But it was a second too late...
"Your friend is both right and wrong. Am I the mayor who was elected to govern all of Tokyo today?" The voice states so calmly, unmoving under Serena's frozen hand on his shoulder.
"Not exactly. Will I be the mayor tomorrow and every day after that?" Suddenly the plush seat swivels, revealing not the short friendly man known to them as Mayor Ishibara, but a taller dark devious man with a large Black Opal embedded on his forehead.
"Definitely! This city will be begging at my feet after my minions drain everyone's energy dry." Lord Opalson grasps Serena's hand, and in one swift move throws her hard as easily as weightless cotton candy over his shoulder, crashing the poor girl into the large high fifth story window.
Glass shatters at the impact, and Serena goes flying outwards. But years of hard trained quick reflexes hold onto the edges of a historic statue luckily adorning the outside the building's ledge, her long legs and short skirt dangling in the breeze as she screams.
"Help! Luna!" Serena's plaintive cries could be heard as Lord Opalson stands over the edge looking down upon her, laughing maniacally.
"What a pathetic human you make, Sailor Moon." Opalson chuckles, about to cruelly smash her holding on fingers with his boot.
"Ahh!" He screams instead as a blue-black blur streaks and flashes across his face, leaving on it streaming bloody red scars.
"SERENA! HOLD ON! Sailor Mars, transform now!" Luna, her claws flashing, have blinded their enemy long enough for Rei to make her transformation.
"MARS CRYSTAL POWER MAKEUP!" Red fire swirls around the room as Super Sailor Mars jumps right into an offensive pose.
"MARS CELESTIAL FIRE SURROUND!" The raven haired girl screams, and blazing hoops wrap around the wounded Lord Opalson, closing in a fire around him and setting the mayoral desk ablaze in the now smoke-filled office.
"SERENA! Are you all right?!" Mars flies to her friend, falling to her knees, ignoring the glass shards and grabbing onto Serena's arm as she begins to pull Serena up with all her might.
STAB!
Suddenly Rei feels intense pain stabbing to her shoulder, as a sharp dagger pierces through her flesh, impaling her in the back.
"You messin' with my hubby, luv? Now you're MESSIN' with ME!" Rei closes her eyes as Lady Ruby's cutting blade shears through her back once again. Mars screams out in pain, but still she wouldn't let go of Serena's hand for anything.
"Sailor Mars!" Serena cries out, seeing the pain evident in Rei's exotic violet eyes, and the spite glowering above her in Lady Ruby's as well as upon her slightly charred, face scratched husband who appears behind her. The wicked pair revel in the desperate situation they had caused for these two measly soldiers, the useless lives of which were now held in their powerful hands...
"Rei!" Serena squeals, feeling her friend's pain as Lady Ruby mercilessly continues to carve at Rei's back, expertly savoring the slow torture she was putting her victim through.
"You wicked witch!" Luna growls angrily and leaps with her flying sharpened claws in an attempt to swipe at this vengeful woman's evil face. Lady Ruby, unlike her mate, is too quick, knocking Luna away and out through the open broken window with a powerful backhand.
"LUNA!" Serena screams as she watches her guardian/dear friend fly unconsciously through the thin air above the ledge she herself was perilously dangling from.
Without a second thought, the pure heart that was Serena reaches out far - farther - farthest- to grab hold of her descending kitty, even if it meant giving her own life in the attempt…
"SAILOR MOON! I can't- ergh- I can't HOLD ON!" "SAILOR MOON! " Sailor Mars's screech is more in angst for her princess's danger than her own pain as their fingers slip from one another's as Sailor Moon and Luna go plummeting down the five long stories towards the cold concrete ground below.
"SERENA!" Serena could still hear Rei's ear piercing scream in her spinning head as the force of the air knocks the wind out of her. She watches Luna fall helplessly beside her and wonders if this was the end of the line for them both…
It wasn't all that hard to 'surf' the Internet, computers and other devices for gathering information - even from the far corners of the world – no, the universe - it coming second nature to Amy Anderson, genius girl she was. Amy excelled at most everything academic, though her low self-esteem would only credit her genius IQ to pure study, day and night. But it wasn't all schooling. It is more the application, the desire to learn, that gave Amy the intelligence she acquired over the years. And that dogged application and brilliant tenacity for her studies is what Amy did best. But even the most studious could be frustrated by a fruitless search.
"Still nothing?" A male voice asks from behind her shoulder. Hunched over the glowing computer screen, Amy shakes her dark blue bobbed head.
"We've been at this for hours, Amy. There must be some kind of top-secret security lock on anything to do with the town's shut down. No one seems to know a single thing about it. I wonder what's so -" Darien suddenly grunts in pain, doubling over as he grasps at his temples.
"Darien?! What's wrong?" Amy jumped up from her seat touched her friend's arm.
"Serena! Serena's in danger!" Like a bullet, or a man driven by a mission in the need to protect his love, Darien bolts from the library with Amy hot on his heels.
But in her mad dash, she can't help but overhear a young boy cajoling a group of other bookworm type kids into joining him in watching the latest new television program, scheduled to air in less than half an hour that would 'Totally blow you all away!'
It was something in the voice more than what he said, a definite look about the youngster in that quick glance she took that made Amy notice. She felt a strange sense of déjà vu somehow that she tries to shake off, continuing to race after Darien from the library to wherever Serena was in danger, that taking precedence right now.
And that boy catches her look at him just the same as he yanks along his un-enthusiastic partner with the cat like indigo blue hair as the ruby red boy covertly follows Amy and Darien towards the downtown area.
Suddenly a pair of strong arms wraps around her and Serena lands softly to the safety of the ground below by the firm grasp and familiar scent of—
"Sayer?" Her eyes still clenched tight close from the near-death fright, the bright yellow haired girl whispers with a smile at her dear friend's continually well timed rescues.
You're getting to be almost as good as-
"Not this time, Kitten." Serena's eyes snap open at the unexpected low voice replacing the high one she expected. And she senses more than a bit of annoyance in that also too familiar voice.
"Alex." Serena blushes with a giggle as Sailor Uranus bestows upon her some raised eyebrows. That's when Serena sees the black pleather whoosh of air alight beside them.
"How come you get the good looking woman and I just get the cat?" Sailor Star Fighter asks wryly as he holds out Luna's unconscious form in somewhat disappointed arms as Uranus puts Serena down to stand on her own two long legs.
And boy were they long. Sayer looks Serena's disguised form up and down with a quick double take.
"Whew! Whew! What do we have here? Whoa! That's no Meat-ball!" Taking a quick stride around to get the full picture, Fighter whistles approvingly of disguised Serena's tall, short cropped blonde look (that style just happened to be to his liking.)
"Hey you!" Uranus roughly grabs her lover's wandering chin, pointing his face up towards the blasted window hole where Sailor Mars was obviously putting up quite a valiant fight against the enemies as they watch fire and brimstone rain from above.
"Let's get up there!" She orders and takes off in a sprinting run into the building, legs pumping wildly.
"Coming, Meatball?" All thoughts of flirtations evaporated, Fighter gives Serena a glance behind his back along with the tossed teasing nickname and wink as he takes off after his Uranus's lead.
"Whew! Whew! Now those gams can move out!" He disappears into the historic building in chase of his truly long legged love.
"Poor good Luna." Serena cuddles her wounded, but still alive, cat and places her softly on the grassy knoll by an nearby tree for a rest.
"I'll bring Rei back here ASAP!" She races off, determinedly shouting as she runs:
"MOON ETERNAL POWER MAKEUP!"
"AKURYO TAISAN! MARS FIREBALLS CHARGE!"
Super Sailor Mars calls out attack after attack, spreading an array of Shinto spell papers all over the room. She manages to trip the redheaded hussy enough for her to get her bloodied body up and spouting fire and flame again, despite the pain burning in her temples, her profusely bleeding back and bruised and beaten shoulder area.
But Rei's embittered fierce anger at losing her friend, her sparring partner, her princess - losing Serena - made her blind to all pain, all physical frailties, all human limitations—
In this moment, standing amidst an Inferno of flame - Sailor Mars more than proved that she was the embodiment of the Soldier of War.
"MARS FLAME SNIPER!"
Spitting fire from every point of her being, Sailor Mars aim was straight and true at Lady Ruby's already scorched form, her red hair burnt and blackened as Rei continues to release the relentless conflagration of her full fury upon the evil creature who took her best friend from her.
"FIRE DAGGER SLICE!"
But Lady Ruby did not back down like her weaker partner who was yellow bellied enough to hide in his shielded opal bubble and just watch the ensuing bedlam from its safety.
No, she explodes with red flames of her own wicked variety, dually fighting fire with fire.
Ruby's dagger energy beam collides with Mars Flame Arrow Sniper, splitting the arrow and shooting through, directly towards Mars's heart…
"SPACE SWORD BLASTER!"
Uranus's own powerful energy blade sideswipes Ruby's, sending it careening off course to explode into a wall.
"Invited by the New Age, Sailor Uranus! Ready to dazzle you." The wind whistles around her as Uranus stands defiantly, her arms crossed in a no-nonsense position.
"Piercing to the evil darkness, I am a wandering shooting star! Sailor Star Fighter!" Light spins about the star field sky as Star Fighter leaps into the battle with the snap of a gloved finger.
"STAR SERIOUS LASER!"
Star Fighter shoots a beam at the redhead, sending her flying backwards, though that ever-present sneer was still on her face.
"Don't just stand there like a lost 'roo, Opie, let's kick these dingoes into next week!" Fiery Ruby stands, ready again to exchange deadly blows with these despised soldiers.
Especially that bloody Sailor Uranus! Last time, she was a royal pain in my-
"No, Ruby. We'll retreat this time. They make no difference any longer now that our plan has been set into place." He says to her twisted features.
"And there is absolutely nothing you can do about, Sailor Nothings." Lord Opalson cackles at his full-proof scheme and he zaps away, even as Fighter and Mars both aim their deadliest blasts at him.
"My hubby's right, puny chits. Have fun trying to undo our plan. You'll never succeed, worthless wimps! And this bleedin' city will be in our grasp in less than one hour. I'll enjoy seeing you bow before me, Sailor Uranus! Yes, I'll enjoy that very bloomin' much." With that, she too disappears, laughing.
Uranus's swift kick pummels empty air, leaving the trio of soldiers feeling rather apprehensive.
Just then, the office door swings open.
"Soldier of Love huff and huff huff Justice huff huff"
"I am huff huff huff Sailor Moon! puff, puff"
"Hey! Where is everybody?!" Bewildered by the quiet awaiting her rather than the din of battle she heard raging whilst she climbed,Serena is taken off guard by the ferocity of Sailor Mars embrace amidst the cascade of her grateful tears.
"Don't go falling off roofs again, stupid Meatballhead!" Biting as ever comes Rei's impassioned scolding, though a smile breaks through the blood stained tears running down her cheeks for her friend.
"I won't make a habit of it, that's for sure, Rei. Aww! You beat them without me?" With a crooked lip on her face, Sailor Moon seemed a bit disappointed after her very long run it up the endless flights of stairs to find she missed out on all the action and superheroine stuff. Elevators were down. Figures.
"If only that were so, Kitten." Uranus says, the cold wind whipping through her golden waves as her drifting eyes cause all to follow her gaze through the blown out window, towards a high rise far across the city where a television satellite was on a roof, pointing its beam straight out into the ignorant, innocent sky…
"Mina? Where are you going?" Lita stands in the back alley behind the newly remodeled Galaxy TV station she and Artemis had hurried in to catch up to the dashing off girl.
"Well, if they don't know my friend Kevin, how else are we supposed to get in? I wonder why they said they never heard of him? I bet he's on some secret on-location shoot or something!" Mina aimlessly ponders, her mouth rattling a mile a minute as she races blindly into the alley.
"I think that boy was just trying to impress you with all that 'assistant director' talk, Mina." A down to earth Artemis sighs at her naïveté, he present when Mina 'ran into' the chatting up young man at studio.
"Ahh!" Mina lets off an excited shriek.
"Really? You really think so, Artemis? Really!?" Mina was beyond ecstatic at the mere thought of any boy trying to impress her, attention of the male variety a much longed for commodity Mina had long had a hard time acquiring, despite being the gorgeous young thing she was.
"And where was Ken when you met this 'Kevin'?" Lita asks with a raised brow, concern for her childhood friend caught amidst Mina's looming fickleness.
"Ah, my Kenny." Mina sighs, her crazed eyes going rather starry.
"Do you think he would be jealous? Now that would be an exciting twist!" The Goddess of Love sighs at the thought of two boys actually fighting over her.
"Mina." Lita puckers her lips in a warning to her starry eyed friend, just as Mina leaps up and suddenly catches hold, in her gymnastic way, the metal railing fire escape attached to the studio rear.
"Mina! You can't go up there!" Artemis chides her like a little girl as she practically does somersaults through the air like a pro.
"C'mon, Artemis! Where's your sense of adventure?! We've gotta get some answers! Besides, aren't you the tiniest bit curious about that hush-hush security guard at the front door? He was acting very suspicious." Mina justifies her continual climbing upward.
"It was pretty suspicious. I've heard there's new management, but - he wouldn't even let us talk to the front desk. Something weird is going on in there." Lita backs up Mina's theory, as the tall girl easily hops up to follow her partner up the fire escape ladder.
"Guys." Artemis whines with that lazy kitty sigh as he jumps up to tail his head strong protégés.
The securely locked window that the creative soldiers find when they reach the top of the landing is no obstacle for a pair of strong Jupiter arms. Lita forces open the window of the surprisingly empty office open.
Peeking around the corner, she and Mina and Artemis enter the hall, the surprised trio discovering that area vacated as well.
"I've been here before on the tour last month - or was it two months ago?" Mina questions her own memory, finger to lips in cute wonderment.
"Mina, get to the point." Artemis continually had to remind the sift headed girl her place.
"Well, it was jam-packed with all kinds of technicians and staff in such - but where are they all? I ask you! Especially at this time in the afternoon, when they're supposed to be getting soap operas on the air! Oh no! Today's not a rerun day is it? Oh. Artemis! Now we'll never find out what happened to Judith's twin cousin's ex-fiancé on the 'Young and the -" In exasperated disappointment, Mina's television heartbreak over the loss of her (and Artemis's too!) favorite soap is cut off by a voice from behind them.
"What are you doing here? This is a secured area!" A dead serious security guard with dark sunglasses holds a long black police stick, slapping it threateningly in the palm of his hand.
"We're so sorry sir! We were on the studio tour downstairs somewhere earlier -" Lita begins to explain, biting her truthful lip at the necessary lie.
"- And we got lost." Mina sings at the man with a fake fake smile, no problem with spinning a fib or two here as she puts a friendly arm around Lita just to hide a NO PETS ALLOWED ON PREMISES white kitty, whose poor tail gets stepped on in the process, Artemis, stifles a scream as he tries to warn the pair of the guard.
"There is no tour today." The guard says, his voice becoming angry and exacting.
"You are trespassing on private property." He recites like a robot, and very un-policemanlike takes an unexpected swing with his police stick at a stunned Mina.
To which Lita intercepts, grabbing the wrist and shoving it back back until the security guard was flying over her shoulder to smash against the hallway wall. His hat and sunglasses slide off in the process, revealing a grotesque greenish face with green yellow blood oozing from its forehead.
"NEGAMONSTER!" Mina and Lita both cry in sync, the hideous creature already starting to stir again, even after Lita's fierce blows.
"Guys! TRANSFORM!" Artemis orders, his alert cat like senses going off the minute the guard stepped out.
"RIGHT!"
"JUPITER CRYSTAL POWER!"
"VENUS CRYSTAL POWER!"
"MAKEUP!"
The green and orange lights flicker and bounce off the station's television recording equipment around as Sailors Jupiter and Venus make a run for the elevator going up. Lita gives the chasing monster in the police uniform a quick swift kick, and he goes down, flying backwards as the elevator ascends.
"Where?" All serious now, Venus asks as she stands at the elevator direction panel.
"The main control room, top story. That's where everything always happens in this place." Artemis says with a shrug, recalling the Scouts reports, not so long ago, of Sailor Galaxia's takeover in this very building
"You got it , Artemis!" Venus punches the Up button, holding her breath as the high-speed elevator zooms them off into unknown danger.
"I've got that bad feeling about this." Jupiter grits her teeth when Artemis nods in agreement a split second before the lift comes to a complete stop halfway there, jerking them all forward, as the elevator is plunged into complete darkness.
"Hello there, my dears. Aren't we ruffled today? Your hair must be so hard to style, since you continually rely on that big red baby ribbon to cover up its lack of body, Sailor Venus." A voice suddenly pierces the darkness by way of a small lighted 5 inch communicator screen that pops into focus on the elevator's control panel to reveal its source.
"Swanette." Mina says, scrambling to her feet to glare at the Birdie look-alike smirking back at her.
"Oh, you remembered my name. How quaint. Please don't bother getting up. You'll be on your way down soon enough again. By the way, have a nice trip." She giggles as the screen blinks off amidst static, leaving Venus, Jupiter and Artemis in total darkness and silence again, save for an eerie ticking—like that of a timer, counting down…
And then come the earsplitting screechings from just outside the elevator shaft, surrounding them to the point of claustrophobia...
It was like a scene from the iconic Alfred Hitchcock movie. Each time Sailor Jupiter climbed up the escape hole in attempts to shoot the birds away, they slurry at her, attacking her with claws and talons clawing the brave girl back into the elevator's safety.
"There's too many of them! And the cable's too weak for all of us to climb up anyway. I felt it about to break just under my weight!" Jupiter rumbles, rubbing at the painful scratches through tears on her uniform that the angry birds encircling the elevator had clawed at her, even as she tried to weather their relentless oncoming storm.
"I've never seen birds so angry! It must be the work of the Negaforce! But if we try to shoot them down, we may hit the cable." Sailor Venus reasons out loud.
"Well, if we don't do something soon, they'll eat through the wire anyway. Those buzzards are hungry, believe me." Jupiter had more than a few bloody pecked marks on her arms and legs to prove it.
"Can we jump to a ledge?" Venus pokes out her head as she hops up to scour the darkened elevator shaft walls for anything they might grab hold up to escape.
"Ahh!" Mina closes her eyes as a big crow like bird swoops down at her, actually trying to peck her eyes out. Lita pulls her friend's legs, tugging her back down to safety and re-closing the hatch once Artemis scoots back in
"Those birds are vicious! I knew there was a reason I never liked chicken!" Artemis exclaims, his own kitty form bloodied from sharp beaks as he jumps back into the hole in return from his scouting wanderings.
"So, Artemis?" Venus asks her guardian cat hopefully.
"No. Notta. Nothing. Not even a floor ledge or crawl space big enough for me to stand on. I think we're out of luck girls." He shakes his head negatively as he licks his own wounds."
"Communication doesn't work. Jammed by some interference or something." Jupiter shakes her Sailor Communicator hard. Then frustrated, she throws the sizzling little screen out the ceiling hole where it eerily clatters and then falls, falls, falls, until it smashes to the bottom floor finally with an echoing splat making Venus, Artemis and Jupiter gulp then swallow in fear of the similar impending fate awaiting them below if they didn't do something - and fast.
Suddenly, amidst the sound of cawing, pecking and squawking birds, the deafening sound of metal shrieks in terror. The frantic trio gaze up to see the elevator's traction steel ropes holding them up begin to fray and buckle, threatening to snap under the Aves attack several feet above as their elevator car begins to sway.
"I'm going up. I don't care if they claw me to death. I'm gonna hold that cable together for you to climb up over me. There must be an exit up there somewhere. There just has to be! Just close your eyes tight and keep climbing upward. Don't turn back, no matter what, Mina. You hear me Artemis? You two just keep going fast as you can. Nevermind me! Just tell Andrew… No, he knows." A passing thought to her sweet boy she most likely would never see again on her heart, Super Sailor Jupiter would sacrifice herself for any of her friends - especially when she was so darned mad!
"Jupiter! Wait!" Mina calls, but her physically active friend was gone already. Mina and Artemis both watch in fear as Jupiter ably ascends the cable, braving its unstable dizzying weaving - and immediately is attacked by an onslaught of foul clawing and cawing and screeching all about her poor body.
"Jupiter!" Mina cries in empathic pain as she witnesses her strong-willed partner suffer as she continues climbing up, up until she reaches the gnawed out point of the rapidly unraveling steel strands, amazingly managing - just in the nick of time! - to pull the metal rope back together with all her strength in play to hold it together.
"C'mon!" Her strained voice commands, for even the strongest girl on the planet found the weight of an entire elevator system vs gravity's pull downward almost unbearable.
"Mina! Go!" Artemis shouts, he leaping to her back and swatting off the horrid birds attacking her head as they climb up as quickly as they could until Venus reaches Jupiter's bloodied and strained body.
"Climb over me!" Jupiter orders when Venus hesitates to add her weight to her friend's already too heavy and injured burden.
"But -" Mina knows what pain Jupiter must be going through to save her and Artemis, so it hurts her too.
"Go!" Obeying, Venus continues her ascent despite her biting conscience, grabbing hold Jupiter's sturdy legs to pull herself up.
"Ahh!" Venus lets out a scream when a flurry of crows crowd around her, picking at her poor scratched up hands and pecking at the back of her head as the Goddess of Beauty begins to slip from the elevator cable - hands giving way as she falls perilously...
"How bleak the days of November are. How inspiring. But these days, nothing can inspire me. Isn't that right, Michelle?" A lone woman stares at her reflection in the glass of the car window, her depressing mood making the cloudy late November day even cloudier.
"Talking to yourself again? You're getting old." Turning its face to her, the Golden mirror on her lap shows clearly, to her defeated eyes, the wrinkles that worry and strain and overwhelming sadness has brought to her lovely young features she once believed ageless.
She felt so alone, for that someone with whom she could share every stray thought with, every passing word and feeling - he was beyond her reach.
Robin. Not nearly a moment would go by without even Michelle's most mundane thoughts being invaded by visions of her lost love. By the person she gave her everything to and longed to feel his everything in return again. That sweet love they had found together she would do anything for, go anywhere to be with again, as it replays in her mind in an endless loop.
How easy it would be just to invite Metallia's evil in, and then I could be with my Robin again...
'No Michelle. You won't do that. You'll stay right here. You stay with me.' The voices of reason resound in one common form of one singular voice: that of Michelle's other beloved, the other half of her half she could not live without, that other person whom her soul also belonged to.
"Amara." Michelle whispers the fond name of her cousin to the cool November wind blowing at her curls through the cracked open window. And so she sits in her best friend's red Ferrari with her hands clutching her heart's talisman tightly, trying desperately to wipe her mind of all thoughts, for any one of them would surely bring her pain.
But today that talisman would not allow her this luxury, Michelle's glazing over eyes trying shut out the world crystallize at the visions flickering across her psychic mirror.
Venus. Jupiter. There is great evil lurking nearby and they are caught in the thick of it!
Instinctively flying from the car's passenger door to help him, this Sailor Soldier with the glistening aqua curls freezes in mid step, her weakened body hanging on to the strength of a car door for support as her heart stops its beatings..
Robin!
She could feel his presence too suddenly flutter somewhere close by. Just for a second, just for a flash of a soulful recognition.
Nothing much beyond awareness of his being.
And then just as suddenly, it's gone again, Michelle gasping for breath at the intense overwhelming feeling.
"Robin! Robin! Where are you?!" In a moment of madness, Michelle cries to run to him, to want to hold his soul tenderly in hers again, no matter what the consequences.
'Neptune! If you ever see him, if you ever hear him, if you ever feel him – RUN – HIDE! He's not the same man any more. Metallia destroyed him. You'll be destroyed too if you let them take you. Just turn around and wait for me. Don't Go Anywhere Alone.'
There, Uranus's logical hard strict voice rings through her head and Michelle affords herself a small smile.
You're right, my dearest Amaralexis. He is not the same anymore. But can't you see, my love? I am not the same anymore either.
And with does broken thoughts, Michelle slams the car door her adored one had instructed her to remain inside - behind its locked doors, behind her protection, to just close her eyes and wash away her oceans of tears of this world.
But the seas are rough again as a transformed Sailor Neptune takes to her stiletto heels towards the building with the monstrous satellite on the roof. The one standing out against the city's backdrop with the words 'Galaxy TV' insignia blazed high atop it.
When Serena was in danger, Darien can move very quickly, can't he? Amy muses to herself as she pushes hard, pumping her skinny legs briskly to catch up to the determined man in front of her, racing to his love's side.
Serena's lucky to have someone who loves her so much. Every thought not only diverted her busy brain towards study, Amy smiles to herself as she runs with whims of her own boyfriend also on her mind.
I'm so sorry I've been ignoring you lately, Greg. But every day has been a struggle, jumping from one battle to the next and planning strategies all the while. I simply haven't had the opportunity to call you –
Thinking this at the same time, her brain on two planes, she works her computer to scan the area as well. Then Amy suddenly pauses in mid stride, her eyes lifting towards the television station up ahead as she begins to point at the readings that were rising off the scale.
"Darien. Up ahead from that TV station! Watch out!" Amy's constantly cluttered mind is not too preoccupied to see incoming danger as she takes a burst of speed, throwing herself on Darien and sideswiping them both onto the hard sidewalk as showers of pelting explosions narrowly miss them.
"You all right, Amy?" Darien's concerned voice asks with a hand extended down to help Amy up. He is immediately back on his feet, readied to any further danger.
"Yes thank you. I'm scanning the area, but I can't pinpoint where that attack just came from!" Putting her mini computer back in her pocket, Amy decides it's time for action rather than research as she holds her transformation pen to the air. For no matter where that attack came from, Sailor Mercury should be on call. She sees out of the corner of her eye that Darien had the same idea for Tuxedo Mask with his transforming rose in hand.
SPLAT! Amy is shocked to feel her crystal transformation wand in her hand suddenly be struck by something wet and cold.
"Amy!" Tuxedo Mask shouts her name in fear as Amy's quick mind spins, for some reason unable to grasp at first what was going on. But looking over to her hand, the girl shrieks at what she sees there
"An eel?!" Amy throws down the writhing snake like creature that used to be her Mercury transform stick. But it was a moment too late, as the discarded slithering creature comes quickly back towards her, wrapping around her legs and squeezing it with its electricity, somehow able to exist outside of its usual watery habitat.
"Amy!" Tuxedo Mask races to help his friend, but is rewarded with it crackling whip encircling his high collared throat.
"Stop right there, Tuxedo Mask!" A dark rust haired boy - he was no more than a boy, Tuxedo Mask was sure of that - despite the youngster trying to impress with his adult clothes and superior attitude.
"Who are you? Why are you children doing this? I command you to stop!" Tuxedo Mask chokes out, trying to get free to aid an energy drained Amy whose, albeit sad-eyed, attacker was no more than a young teenaged girl.
"We are not children, old man!" The young boy shows his immaturity with a pouting shout that disdained Tuxedo Mask's lordly tone. His energy glowing left hand touches his whip wielding right hand, charging the roped object around Darien's neck, electrocuting him.
"Tuxedo Mask!" Amy likewise feels for her companion as her own energy ebbs away. The almost... sorry... look in the eyes of the girl standing over her, the girl who's very whim seemed to control the energy sucking eel, was very strange...
The regretful look in the girl known as Cattana's indigo eyes is replaced by that of sudden fear, and Amy can't help but feel pity for the frightened child as she is blasted backwards by an unrelenting flying—
"URANUS SPACE SWORD BLASTER!"
Uranus's voice resounds through the empty streets as her powerful Space Sword grazes the girl's pile of frizzy hair and slices at the eel at Amy's legs, causing both Cattana and the sea creature to squeal in pain before the water snake dissipates.
Amy falls to the ground panting, her now thankfully inanimate wand clattering to her feet.
"Tuxedo Mask!" Eternal Sailor Moon joins the battle scene, crying at her husband's imminent danger as she rushes to him.
"Let him go!" She pleads with the cold eyes of the boy holding the whip yet taut around his neck.
"You really think I will just because you said so, you dumb looking girl!?" Yet the school bully, Topaz smirks ugly at Serena's plaintive cry, he cruelly tightening the whip around Darien's neck instead.
"Hey! You'd better listen to that lady, pal!" Topaz spins to see a new shiny black leather bound Sailor standing behind him with her arms crossed, smug expression on her face.
"And why should I? Just because another silly girl in some stupid blinkin' thigh-high boots all in black, trying to be all scary biscuits, orders me to, luv?" Topaz had traces of an Australian accent when he let his anger slip, and more than his share of sarcastic arrogance generously passed down from 'good' parenting examples.
"Because she's a Princess, you little jerk!" Sailor Star Fighter yanks the whip's handle and from Topaz's grasp, freeing Tuxedo Mask, and then halts the boy's quick left jab just at the last second.
The two of them going down to the ground in a fistfight match, the bully boy and his new challenger scrapping it out on the playground of the city street.
POUND! SWING! WHACK! Both fighters' blood spills in the frenzied melee until the more experienced of the two, whose name said it all, ends up on top.
"How does it feel getting whupped by a girl?" Sailor Star Fighter devilishly shoves the bad mouthing boy hard to the pavement, taking a perching pinned down stance atop him to sneer down at Topaz's bruised and bloodied face.
"Get off me you perverted drongo! -" Topaz's heavily accented nasty reply amply shows his mother's bad influence.
"Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words'll never –" Sailor Star Fighter starts to rhyme, his physically active body invigorated by the scuffle as he flashes Eternal Sailor Moon a wry smile.
KICK!
"—Hurt ya? Don't mind if I do, luv. Mother's here, Topaz. Don't you worry, son. Mother will clean up the dag mess." From out of the clear blue, Lady Ruby appears to her son's side, letting him have a go at the scrap for starters. But sometimes Mum needs to jump in, Ruby about to have another kick at fighters ground-level form.
"Now Mama, boys will be boys."
PUNCH!
Uranus is ready to jump into the fray, proving that fistfights weren't only for boys as she slams her rivalrous enemy back from hitting Sailor Star Fighter with a powerful crunching blow, Lady Ruby finding her match in this fast and furious earthshaking woman.
"Darien, are you hurt?!" Sailor Moon props her husband up in her lap as she massages his neck. He was sputtering and coughing yet, but otherwise unharmed.
"Where did that girl go?" Super Sailor Mars asks, her violet eyes scanning the area for the departed Cattana.
"Not sure if she's all that bad, guys. Something about that look in her eyes - I don't know." Amy, recovered from her own peril, has no fear to pick up her wand now, calling for her planet's power:
"MERCURY CRYSTAL POWER MAKEUP!" And she transforms just in time to see capable scrappers Fighter and Uranus sync their powers to blast back the vicious mother and son tag team who fall to the ground between them.
"Here's your chance, Sailor Moon!" Tuxedo Mask recovers his voice, but even before he's finished saying the words Cattana reappears with her sister Swanette at her side and the pair of them envelop a bubble around Ruby and Garnet, the four teleporting away in a flash of feathers.
"Where they go?" Eternal Sailor Moon asks, despondently lowering her readied Eternal Tiel and its healing touch.
"I think I know." Mercury says conclusively, turning on her VR visor and raising her mini computer up as it begins to beep incessantly when she points it towards the Galaxy Television building.
"VENUS!" Artemis and a very bloody Sailor Jupiter cry out their best friend's name as they watch in horror as the cawing birds attack Venus as she goes screaming and plummeting down the long dark elevator shaft.
"VENUS LOVE ME CHAIN ENCIRCLE!" Her descending cry for the powers of the planet Venus is enough to give the blonde bombshell a reprieve as a readied and willing Artemis grabs in his kitty mouth, his end of the 'Love Me Chain' Venus had sent up. The white cat guardian digs deep into Jupiter's boot with his clawed paw to hold on with every ounce of strength in him as his girl's only lifeline. Fortunately, the Venus powered light show also scares the birds away.
"Oh! Artemis I love you!" In the end, when it came down to it, Mina could always turn to her guardian protector, the little white cat who meant so very much to the soldier of love as she blows loving kisses of gratitude up towards her fuzzy hero.
"Venus! Hold on!" Jupiter answers for the poor cat who, with unbelievable strength, was holding up a girl nearly 10 times his weight.
"Oh no! Above you! The birds are coming back!" Venus cries up from the end of her glowing chain below at the legion of multicolored crows grown more fearless with even sharper beaks and claws coming for one last dive at the vulnerable trio.
"ARTEMIS!" Mina screams as the horde of foul aim their sights directly at the her heroic kitty in his dogged attempt to keep his teeth sunk into her slipping love chain…
"NEPTUNE SUBMARINE REFLECTION!"
From somewhere high above, a sweet melodic voice sings out in the dark corridors as the elevator chamber explodes into a blinding light. Jupiter, Venus and Artemis didn't know what was happening as their eyes are dazzled for a minute until suddenly the squadron of crows stop midair. Then, with great cawing and screeching, transmute back into their original forms, revealing themselves to be soulless inanimate video cameras and television equipment a split second before they careen down to the bottomless pit below.
"Sailor Neptune!" Venus smiles in gratitude as the light behind the open elevator door high above them glimmers the wispy silhouetted form of the familiar aqua ocean maiden.
"Are you all rig- Ahh!" Neptune's concerned call down the elevator shaft is cut off by her own ear piercing scream.
"Neptune!" Jupiter shouts, unable to do anything to hold the two broken pieces of the ruptured elevator cable together and watch as Neptune is grabbed from behind by a pair of mysterious dark hands.
"Hello, Sailor Neptune. Thank you so much for coming." Michelle closes her eyes as the familiar grip around her waist tightens. And she, not having to hear the voice to know who those arms belonged to, like a signal flashing over the ocean, a tidal wave it all hits her - his scent, his voice, his arms - and she lets go...
Neptune's eyelids open as the man holding her spins her around, seeming to want to look her in the sea of her eyes as much as she wanted to see his...
Your eyes... oh, Robin, where have you gone? Michelle's blue irises fill with tears as the cold hard pale green eyes of her captor gaze back into hers blankly just before the two of them zap way into nothingness.
"Sailor Neptune!? What's going on up there?!" Venus calls, worried for her fellow Sailor sister's safety, and the sudden silence that came no reply.
But that silence doesn't last for long as the elevator they were dangling with, now several flights below them begins to make strange noises, as if it was slowly churning back to life –
"You've hurt my little birdies. Naughty naughty girls! We'll just have to do something about you." Swannette's voice tic-tics her tongue in her cheek as the sound echoes through the chamber. That's when the elevator charges up and begins its ascent up towards them at all alarming speed, on a course to crush the three dangling victims in its wake.
"STAR SERIOUS LASER!" Venus feels the blazing laser beam pass her so close it nearly singes her hair bow as it zings down to explode the elevator car just about to smash into her dangerously dangling form.
"Hang on Jupiter! Venus!" Lita almost breathes a sigh of relief upon hearing Uranus's low voice bellow down through the shaft. She then feels the elevator cable she was holding onto being tugged upon..
"Grab it, Starr!" Uranus growls as she swings Fighter's light body out into the cavity as he lunges for the cable to grab hold.
"Got it!" Sailor Star Fighter announces with a grunting sound as his partner takes firm hold of his tight abdomen from behind and pulls him back into her.
"I like that Ally." Star Fighter whispers when her face buries in his black ponytail as Uranus wraps her strong arms around his stomach.
"Just shut up and pull." She orders, rolling her eyes as the two of them take hold of the cable and it slowly begins to move up.
But maybe not fast enough, as poor good Artemis's teeth begin to slip from holding Venus's chain.
"Hurry up guys! Artemis can't hold out much longer!" Jupiter cries, she too feeling the strain of holding the cables together so long as Venus continues to attempt to climb up her chain.
"Pull, Starr!" Uranus growls in his ear from behind.
"I AM PULLING!" He shouts back, but gravity was proving to be too much for them, Alex silently swearing for splitting up with Sailors Moon, Mercury, Mars and Tuxedo Mask upon entering the building. Now they could use all the help they could get as Lita, Mina and Artemis's fate hangs in the balance...
A glimmer of light.
Uranus looks out the corner of her eye to see Sailor Star Maker's determined countenance, come in behind her as he wordlessly adds his considerable strength of their struggle. And it is enough, as the three Sailor Soldiers work together to pull up an exhausted Jupiter, Artemis and finally Venus. Jupiter collapses into Fighter's arms, Venus into Maker's as soon as they're up and safe out of the elevator to rest on the solid top floor again.
"You gotta lose some weight, Jupiter!" A huffing Fighter teases the girl collapsed in Star Maker's arms.
"At least I don't look anemic." Jupiter swipes the tease back as she gives a poke to Fighter's pencil thin tummy, never thinking that Sayer's dumb teases would be so welcome after that close close call.
"Hey." Sailor Star Fighter smirks back, glad that she was well enough to exchange friendly barbs.
"Thank you thank you thank you thank you!" Venus looks up adoringly at her tall handsome rescuer, Terry glad he and Tara made it in time to help.
But Mina soon doesn't forget her long-suffering true hero, quickly turning to cuddle Artemis lovingly in her arms.
"Artemis." She whispers his name as she kneels to kiss the crescent moon on his forehead.
"Mina." Artemis sighs with a smile, further words unnecessary, their bond so close as he is now able to slip away into a peaceful exhausted faint.
"Oh! Neptune!" Jupiter suddenly shouts in alarm as soon as her mind stops reeling.
"Neptune?! Where is Michelle?" Uranus's standoffish look at Maker turns into instant worry for her beloved Michelle as she spins on her heel to take Jupiter by the shoulders and look her directly in the eye.
"I don't know, Uranus. Neptune came and zapped the attacking birds while we were down there and then we heard her cry out and – I'm sorry -" Lita diverts your eyes, regretful she wasn't able to protect Michelle as Alex would have, not to be the soldier Alex was –
"She just disappeared." Venus fills in the gap as she stands up.
"Michelle." Uranus's eyes turn serious, her mouth set in a firm line as she suddenly takes off as fast as the wind could fly her way to Neptune, leaving everyone in her speedy wake.
Fighter was close on her heels as Jupiter, Venus, Maker and a quiet Saturn, who had just arrived, follow as best they could. Each of them felt inside there was deep trouble somewhere lurking ahead of their every step with time quickly running out.
"Ah, my dear big brother, I see you have finally deemed to come and join the festivities. Or is it just to impress Queen Metallia on account of my triumph, perhaps?" There was little brotherly affection in Lord Opalson's scornful barb at his older sibling's late arrival. He, himself was in a foul mood, his face bandaged and scarred from an earlier encounter with the business end of a black cat's angry claws.
"Do not agitate me, little brother. Remember it is I who am in charge of this operation." King Pearlellion remands imperiously his younger sibling as the King glances around, surveying the television studio control room's areas technologies.
"Oh yes, by all means, Pearly – it's all you luv." Lady Ruby comes smirking up to where the two brothers were sparring.
"But I've heard you're not our Supreme Commander anymore." Her arms crossed arrogantly, she leans on her husband's director chair where he was seated.
"And where have you heard of this nonsense, you red witch?!" Pearlellion demands of his rude sister-in-law.
"I have my sources." She smirks, her eyes indeed flashing a vivid bright red as she chuckles nastily, walking away from the King in total disrespect.
"Where is the Heir, mother? I wish to speak with him on some important matters." Young Topaz joins his parents glare at his uncle.
"I'm sure he'll be along soon enough, my boy to see the fireworks we've cooked up." Ruby answers, possessively stroking her offspring's spiky head.
"Tell me. If that whelp is so important, then why isn't he here to witness the city's takeover? Hmm?" Pearellion points out heartily.
"Maybe because the 'whelp' has better things to do than to lazily sit here while we're being invaded by Sailor Soldiers. Just maybe, Pearellion, you should watch your step." Robin suddenly appears behind him, a wide-eyed Sailor Neptune in his captive grasp.
"Sailor Soldiers!? How did they survive my attacks?" Swannette rushes up, her face pouty as her fists clench in the air.
"You tell me." Robin now turns his cold gaze on her.
"They're already on their way up, I am certain. See if you're capable of at least delaying them long enough to initialize our plan." Dismissively superior in his haughty way, Robin waves Swannette, Dracon and Cattana off with the flick of a hand and the trio go running as ordered.
"Then why, pray tell, have you brought this particular Sailor Soldier here if we're to avoid them?" Pearellion, his feathers more than ruffled, questions as he stands face-to-face with his leather clad rival, eyeing Neptune warily in the corner of his eye.
"Were not trying to avoid them out of fear, Pearlellion - at least I'm not." Robin raises his brows in a sarcastic unfeeling manner at the King.
"- We're merely trying to dominate them." And with those harsh words Robin uncaringly shoves the chest of a trembling Neptune away, Michelle falling to her knees to the floor from the cruel thrust. As her mind screams to reach out his blank one, Neptune feels warm hands on her. A comforting arm wraps around her as she looks up, shocked to find the almost kind eyes of the wicked Queen she faced not so long ago.
"Watch her, Aquamarianna. But I doubt she will give you any trouble. Her mind seems to be addled." Robin's eyes glaze over Michelle for a moment. In his supreme arrogance, he had mistaken her quiet submission for weakness and not the strength of love and hope that Neptune's heart would not let go of.
"Are you all right, dear?" Aquamarianna had changed since her encounter with Eternal Sailor Moon's infinite healing power. She waits for the others to walk away before she speaks, helping Michelle to her feet with care.
"Yes. Thank you." Neptune sees this changed Queen's kindness, though the tactical part of her mind was noting her other enemies inattention as the two men and the ruby haired woman, not to mention her Robin, seeming to oversee them all, appeared to be anxiously preparing for something to happen - soon - at the other end of the control room.
Her mind screams that this was her chance to escape, to run away like Amara said to, to go and warn the others of what she heard, to find some way to stop whatever was about to occur -
But no. Neptune does not move from her spot. Sometimes thought to be a weaker soldier due to her girlish flighty ways at times and Uranus's protective stance over her, Neptune would prove them all wrong today. For she was the Soldier of Embrace, who could withstand anything if it meant preserving the beautiful destiny she so longed to keep.
You may be able to hide away from me, Robin, my dearest. But the others cannot.
"Everything's ready, mates." Lady Ruby informs her 'boss', looking at Robin directly over her brother in-law's power usurped head.
"When this broadcast goes out, everyone watching - which includes nearly the entire population of Tokyo - we're assured, will be completely and entirely immobilized, their energy drained completely to our satellite's ruby core. Located right here." Opalson reiterates what his brilliant, yet evil, mind had accomplished - over the medium of television that human beings have addictively come to rely on so thoroughly as he motions to the on-screen monitor of the doctored TV satellite beaming overhead where it was waiting to suck the life's energy out of them directly through their television sets.
"How long will it take?" Pearlellion asks nonchalantly, not caring one way or another for yet another one of his brother's mad schemes, nor much of human life for that matter.
"Less than 10 seconds for even the most hard-headed watcher. Nobody could withstand more than that." Ruby says, proud of her husband's evil invention.
"Can I watch, Mum?" Topaz asks, his own favorite action-packed TV program on tonight.
"Of course! You will be immune to any ill effects with these, son." Lord Opalson was the kind of evil genius to think of everything, he handing his boy a VR looking visor, its ruby tinted polycarbonate lens gleaming in the sunlight.
"The few people left who didn't fall will be begging at our feet after Metallia's newfound powers rock this sorry city." Lady Ruby cackles.
"Well, what's left of it anyway, after we're through with it." She continues to laugh loudly about the weak about to be trodden under her booted foot. Her husband, gone insane himself a bit in his cold technological science world, joins in her triumphant chuckles.
"It's time. Do it." Robin says simply – no, he orders - suddenly vanishing from sight.
The Heir is a strange fellow. Opalson shakes his head in disbelief that the man in charge wouldn't want to be here to see this amazing feat be accomplished as the large clock overhead blinks to the 12 o'clock noon hour. His gloved hand reaches for the lever that would start the dark energy draining mayhem throughout the city…
Don't do that.
"What did you say?" Opalson turns to his wife standing nearby, both of them wearing their VR visors seeming confused. But the voice in his head did not belong to her.
"Nothing, luv! What's wrong with you?! Just pull that lever for blinkin' out loud!" Ruby reaches her own hands out, putting Them over her husband's seemingly frozen in place ones. She starts sliding the lever downward for him.
I said stop.
"Who the hell said that?! And why can't I move?!" Ruby shrieks in fury, finding herself stuck in a position just the same as Opalson, paralyzed despite their wills.
"I'll do it! Just watch - hey!" Topaz too freezes as he attempts to aid his parents in accomplishing their evil deed.
"Why are you? -" Pearlellion was aware of something going on as he looks from the face of his brother to sister-in-law to nephew, seeing the same look of - was that terror? - on each of their frozen expressions. He gets up to shake his brother, but the dark-haired man seemed to be paralyzed, his eyes transfixed as was Ruby's and Topaz's.
"What?!"
The girl.
Pearlellion swivels around to where the Sailor Soldier that blasted heir had so foolishly brought to this room was standing beside Aquamarianna. Sailor Neptune looked so peaceful, with her eyes closed, so innocent of all violence, and yet so…dangerous.
The King suddenly feels his own trained mind's vast defenses being played with, toyed at, almost on the verge of breaking down. He sees why his weaker minded sibling and fool wife had fallen prey so easily to this Sailor Soldier's nefarious tactics.
"Stay out of my mind, woman!" He bellows, his significant powers sending a torrent of deadly raw energy at a defenseless Sailor Neptune…
"What does it say, Mercury?" Eternal Sailor Moon asks her VR visored buddy as she, Tuxedo Mask and Super Sailor Mars follow the blue girl up the stairs. (The elevators were down for some strange reason.)
"There's something really powerful on the roof that is slowly charging up. I calculate, in just a few minutes, the power registering will be off the scales of my computer." Super Sailor Mercury walks, talks and types in figures and numbers on her minicomputer keys all at the same time.
"Something? Like what? Is it a weapon of some sort?" Tuxedo Mask asks as the group rushes up the steps.
"Don't know. There's a lot of interference coming from the control room upstairs, so it's hard to detect anything exact." Mercury answers, her eyebrows for a frustration.
"That's where we should be heading. This place is psychically crawling with evil." Sailor Mars decides for the group. In the back of their minds, the Sailors felt like they were doing a double replay of a battle years past - and praying it wouldn't end up as badly as that fateful night they faced Galaxia here at Galaxy TV.
Neptune! Rei's mind senses her telepathic mentor nearby.
"Neptune's in trouble, guys! We've got to hurry, right now -" But Mars is cut off by a woman's dripping evil voice.
"You're not going anywhere, my dears. Let's all stay and have a little chat, okay?" That chat looks like it involved some sharp spiky tipped feathers as Swannette makes a diving entrance, her little sister closely behind her.
Not two floors above them, a similar battle ensues. Uranus, Fighter, Maker, Saturn, Jupiter and Venus's ascent to the control room, where Alex was instinctively leading them, was stopped by single malicious man's ferocious attacks.
"NEGA-THUNDERSTORM BREAK!" Dracon yells out as torrential thunder and lightening pour down upon the group of Sailor Soldiers.
"He dares uses lightening against me!? For that you''ll be punished doubletime, Mister!"
"JUPITER THUNDER CRASH!" Super Sailor Jupiter angrily stands to her feet and channels the lightning storm detonating about them, shooting its electrostatic charge right back at the man who challenged her own fierce powers of nature.
But Dracon doesn't even flinch, seeming to be prepared for this, as he holds up a dark quartz jewel necklace which shields him and appears to suck up Lita's counter attack simultaneously.
"All of these beautiful ladies. Which one do I choose? Hmm?" Lady killer Dracon then sets his amorous sights on the multitudes of shapely beauties before him. Super Sailor Venus seems to catch his fancy as he blasts her down with Jupiter's captured lightning energy that he releases from his quartz jewel pendant in her direction.
"Ahh!" Sailor Venus screams as she goes down, glad she left poor good Artemis safely in the lobby at least, as Sailor Star Maker and Super Sailor Saturn rush to her aid.
"STAR GENTLE UTERUS!" Maker shouts, but his acid attack too is no match for Dracon's energy gathering quartz stone, the raw energy being promptly sizzled back at them.
Fortunately, Super Sailor Saturn quickly puts up a "SILENCE WALL!" to cover the pair just in time.
"Hahaha!" Dracon laughs aloud as yet one more Sailor Soldier stupidly raises ha hand to the sky in defiance of his all powerful energy capturing jewel.
"STAR SERIOUS –" Sailor Star Fighter starts his attack straight continues to laugh, knowing himself protected from these silly fruitless energy beams –
"H-hey!" Dracon sputters as the quartz necklace around his neck is ripped off bya quick forceful hand belonging to the partner in crime of Fighter's attack ruse.
"Don't feel so invulnerable all of a sudden?" Uranus's dark emerald eyes flash at the confounded man, and she takes off with his power source quartz gemstone like the wind.
Feeling the odds more even now, she leaves her fellow soldiers to battle these underlings, as she rushes to the heart of the matter. Uranus too sensed the presence of great evil all about.
And that's where I'll find Michelle.
Like a speeding jet, Uranus vanishes. Dracon was no longer able to block the only corridor leading to the control room after being fried by a truly 'Serious Laser', final 'Death Reborn Revolution' and vengeful 'Venus Crescent Beam Smash!'.
"NEPTUNE!" A cry rings out in the large control room center as a woman throws herself in front of the still form of the soldier of the ocean only to get blown back, thoroughly blasted by Pearlellion's angry deadly energy burst.
But the King is shocked to find it not a fellow Sailor Scout to come to Neptune's aid .
It was his own wife.
"My love! Why did you protect this girl? She is our enemy!" Pearlellion hurries to Aquamarianna's side, embracing her wounded body protectively.
"No Pearlellion. She is not. Can't you see? Her heart aches for her lost love. Just as mine aches for you, my darling." Aquamarianna whispers, caressing her husband's cheek softly as tears fall from her fading eyes.
"What do you mean, Aquamarianna? I am not lost to you! I will always -" Pearlellion shows there was still a heart beating within his turned cold and evil being.
"Pearlellion!" Aquamarianna screams in pain after her fatally wounded body goes limp in her husband's arms.
"Promise me you won't let yourself be devoured by this! Promise me you'll leave Metallia's evil ways. (ergh) Please, please no more lies. I wanted to stand for truth and good like this Sailor Scout - but it's too late for me now. (gasp) But it's not too late for you, my beloved. I followed you, did everything for you, because I loved you Pearellion. As you were before. I honestly, truly lov-" In Aquamarianna's final breath are her truest words of love, as her head hangs down loosely to Pearlellion's heaving chest.
"Aquamarianna! No!" Painfully, the broken man realizes it was by his own hand she whom he loved so dearly passed from him, she whom was every truth he'd ever known he destroyed.
"Don't go! Don't! I need you! I need you!" The proud man's tears fall as he buries his eyes in her beautiful cascades of long wavy hair.
"She hasn't left you, Pearlellion." A witness to all of this tragedy, Super Sailor Neptune announces softly as she fearlessly moves toward him. Pearlellion's bleak eyes fly to hers with a glimmer of hope beyond hope.
"There's a tiny life inside of her body who wants to live, to be born that will not let her go either. She's injured badly, but her consciousness is fighting to stay with you both." Neptune psychically feels two presences present within the woman lying before her. She is certain that Aquamarianna's soul is trying desperately to stay alive, for the tiny baby she has always longed to have, for the man she has eternally sworn to love.
"Don't you know when to say when, curly locks? You 'll pay for messing with my mind!" No love lost between Ruby and her sister-in-law, the redhaired woman races past the traumatic scene, angrily lashing out at the Sailor Soldier as soon as her mind frees itself from Neptune's grasp
"NEGA-RUBY DAGGER SHRED!". Her quickly produced dagger glows a fiery red as it is revealed from its sheathed hiding place in her left boot. Ruby comes slashing at Michelle, her animal eyes wild and crazed…
"Oh!" Sailor Neptune squeaks as she goes down under Lady Ruby's continual slashings, the powerful psychic using all her mental strength to hold the madwoman's arm up as a vicious dagger threatens over Neptune's heart, ready to plunge in any second…
"NEPTUNE!" Super Sailor Uranus's deep voice echoes across the room as she throws open the door only to see her friend's deathly struggle with that redheaded witch.
"Uranus!" Neptune cries out, knowing the situation was dire, and acknowledging what was about to happen was more important than her own life.
"DON'T LET HIM THROW THAT LEVER!" She calls out commandingly, sensing that, in her focused struggle with Ruby, her hold over Opalson was about to give out.
He awakens with his hands still on the deadly lever, and Alex knew from Michelle's serious stare how dangerous the result would be if he succeeded.
But between Michelle and the rest of the world, for Alex there was only ever one choice.
"URANUS SPACE SWORD BLASTER!" Super Sailor Uranus shouts fiercely, her energy blade zinging across the room with deadly precision, slicing Lady Ruby - who was mere seconds away from overpowering a weary Neptune - in the back, sending the wicked woman screaming and writhing to the ground in utmost pain.
But her Space Sword was not finished yet, as it continues to fly like a boomerang off Ruby's back and cutting back in reverse to smash against the lever, breaking it in half, even as Opalson pulls down on it, only to find the mechanism inoperable.
"Ruby!" Opalson calls, his own plans foiled, as he kneels to his woman's side.
"—ungh. For me, Opie. For me -" Ruby weakly swallows hard at the intense pain in her back. But soon her anger grows even greater than her hurt.
"Kill that bloomin' bit—!" Ruby's consciousness faints in mid-swear, Opalson jumping to his feet to slay Uranus without missing a beat.
"OPAL STONE EXPLODE!" Opalson cries out, thrusting a large black opal in the air at Uranus, who dodges it expertly. But she could not avoid its full effects as the opal stretches, grows and bubbles around her, crushing the soldier of the wind against the back wall of the control room.
"STAR SERIOUS LASER!" Star fighter comes in shooting, his aim hitting its mark as it implodes the dark opal into 1000 little opal chips.
"MARS FLAME SNIPER!" Super Sailor Mars had a bone to pick with Opalson as she fires her flame directly at him, pulling no punches, as the despised man collapses beside his wife, both of them in extreme pain, but somehow still clinging to life.
"What you do to my mom and dad?!" Topaz, the last to overcome Neptune's mind control effect, was a boy bright enough to know not to simply lash out in anger at his parents' attackers as his Mum would have. No, Topaz was his brainy father's son too as he shocks all of the 11 Sailor Soldiers crowding in the room by fusing the lever back together with the intensely focused fire pouring from his fingertips.
And he pulls it.
The satellite is activated with its evil mission now in play despite all their hard-fought efforts…
"NOOOO!"" Eternal Sailor Moon cries out for all of those innocents of the city, all of those right now being energy drain as their loved ones watch, unable to do a thing about it.
"All those people..." Rei's heart cries as she sinks to her knees, her empathic psi nature already feeling the effects of the energy drain being successful across the city.
"Stop it! Please somebody!" Neptune cries to her stunned companions, as Uranus hugs her trembling body close.
"I've pinpointed it! It's eminating from the roof! We can still stop it before it drains the entire city!" Mercury shouts and Jupiter kicks in the locked door leading up to the roof, nine Sailor Soldiers and Tuxedo Mask on her heels as they race as they've never raced before, time just about up for the city of Tokyo…
"JUPITER THUNDERBOLTS -!"
"MARS FIREBALLS -!"
"STAR SERIOUS -!"
"VENUS METEOR –!"
"MERCURY ICE STORM –!"
"URANUS WORLD -!"
"STAR GENTLE -!"
"SATURN DEATH REBORN –!"
"SPARKLING FULL MOON SILVER -!"
"I was wondering when you all would arrive." All 10 Sailor Scouts freeze in mid-attack upon the gleaming satellite that was palpitating with the energy of half the city already when a singular form suddenly steps out from the roof's shadows to stand directly in front of it.
"Robin!" Sailors Moon, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter and Venus, in shock shout out the name of the snidely sneering man standing with his arms defiantly crossed, blocking the evil glowing satellite as it continues to broadcast its evil intention.
"Soon your precious city will be in our control. See, you need not waste your petty time trying to –" Robin's smug expression flashes for a moment as one more Soldier rushes up the stairwell to face him, their eyes locking over the distance.
It wasn't these Sailor Soldiers overwhelming numbers that caught him off guard. The weaklings seemed almost unwilling to attack.
No. It was that look in her eyes as a determined Sailor Neptune exchanges a sideways glance and a nod with her lifelong Sailor partner.
Everyone holds their breath in that split second, none of them prepared to attack one of their own, except maybe for-
"WORLD DEEP SHAKING! Combined together, Sailor Neptune and Sailor Uranus send a doubly devastating blast towards the satellite's ruby heart, the attack fully prepared to go straight through anything - or anyone - blocking it.
And Robin does, his eyes not showing the least bit of fear nor surprise, as he faces the deadly blast down until the last possible moment, a smirk upon his snide face.
Acrobatically flipping backwards, he grabs the nearly filled energy ruby with him and teleports away as the satellite explodes into powdered dust, leaving only silence to fall with none but the wind left whistling through each of the Sailor Soldiers standing dumbfounded and defeated on the Galaxy TV roof.
For each of them knew deep inside, the damage had already been done.