Disclaimer: I do not own Sailor Moon, nor do I own the works of H.P. Lovecraft.

Chapter 7: The Outer Gods

"Invoke the power of…what?" Ami asked. "What are you talking about Charles?"

"I'm sorry to tell you Ami that the god these so-called Knights worship, the dreaded Cthulhu, is indeed very real…and very terrible," Ward began. "But he is not the only one of these 'gods' known to exist. I have read of many other such entities during the course of my occult studies. Tsathoggua, Hastur, Shub-Niggurath, and so many other beings like Cthulhu exist in our twisted cosmos. Cthulhu is indeed the strongest of these depraved gods, but there is one deity whose power stands above even Cthulhu's. Within this pantheon, there is no greater deity than Yog-Sothoth.

"I will not lie to you, Ami. Yog-Sothoth is indeed as terrible an entity as Cthulhu and is no friend to humankind, but he is not an active threat. He would only destroy this world if provoked in some way. Believe me, I do not propose this solution lightly, but it is starting to seem like we are running out of time to find any alternatives. In order to destroy this dark power which threatens to destroy our world, we must invoke an even darker power to destroy this enemy first."

"But are you so certain this 'Yog-Sothoth' of yours is powerful enough to go up against Cthulhu?"

"His name is invoked as part of the incantation that brought me back from the dead, and it is also used in the incantation which can return me to the dust. You have seen me use the latter incantation once before."

Ami recalled when she had seen Ward reduce those two shoggoths to dust with a few words. The phrase, Yog-Sothoth had indeed been part of the incantation he had used.

"Okay, so how are we supposed to use Yog-Sothoth to stop the Knights?" Ami asked.

In answer to her question, Ward went over to a small safe he had next to the filing cabinet. After a few quick turns of the dial, Ward opened the safe and pulled out a single open manila envelope worn with age. Ward went back over to Ami and removed a single paper from the envelope and handed it to Ami. Ami carefully examined the yellowed paper and saw it had two lines of text written on it, text in the form of some sort of runic language she had never seen before.

"What is this?" Ami asked with a raised eyebrow.

"One of the documents originally belonging to Joseph Curwen," Ward explained. "I had found the paper ages ago during my original research into Curwen, but filed it away for later examination. At the time my primary concern had been learning about Curwen himself and his dark arts, so the contents of the paper you now hold were of little importance to me. As fortune would have it though, this paper somehow ended up in Ms. Covington's possession, just how I can only guess. In my spare time I've been trying to decipher the contents, and after having consulted the Necronomicon numerous times I have finally determined just what those two lines of text are. One is a spell to call forth the power of Yog-Sothoth, and the other is a spell to banish it."

"Summon Yog-Sothoth's power? You mean summon the god itself?"

"That was my first assumption, but the information I read in the Necronomicon states the first spell allows someone to contact Yog-Sothoth and borrow his power. The other spell is used to remove the power from the user. Both spells were created eons ago by the high priest of a now nameless cult…a man who apparently met an early demise for using the spells. I do not know how Curwen came into possession of these spells or why he never used them, but they are here for us to use."

Ami put a hand to her chin as she continued to examine the paper. "So what you're saying is we should use the first spell on this paper to borrow the power of this god and use it to eliminate Cthulhu."

"And the Deep Ones, and the shoggoths…all of it! We must use the god's dark power to purge the world of their evil!" Here Ward sighed. "The only problem is I have been unable to translate any of the text. I suspect even Curwen was unable to translate these enigmatic runes, which could be the only explanation as to why he never used the first spell to take Yog-Sothoth's power and dominate the world."

After looking over the paper for a few more moments, Ami took out her phone and used it to take out the picture of the text. She then handed the paper back to Ward and went over to the lab's computer. Once the computer had been turned on (apparently for the first time ever from what Ami could see), she opened a web browser and started typing in commands.

"What are you doing?" Ward asked as he came over to stand behind Ami's chair.

"Right now I'm downloading the picture I just took of the document onto this computer." Ami then paused and look back to Ward. "Um…I just realized you probably don't know what download means. The best way I can think to explain it is I'm copying the text on the paper into the computer without having to actually write it myself."

Ward shook his head. "This is indeed an age of sorcery. But what good will it do to have a copy of the text inside this infernal box?"

"Basically I'm going to use the computer to try and translate the text, but first I'll need to run the text through a special program to do it. Fortunately, the supercomputer of my mother planet's castle should have a program that can figure it out. It'll take just a few minutes to establish a proper link."

"I won't pretend to understand what it is you're doing Ami, but I have faith your knowledge of these mechanical arts will be our salvation."

Ami paused in her work and turned her chair fully around to face Ward. "I won't lie to you, Charles. I don't think your idea to borrow the power of some alien god is a particularly good idea. The truth is I'm merely doing this to confirm this text of yours actually is what we think it is. For all we know, what's written on your document could just be an ancient soup recipe. Once we find out exactly what's written on your paper, we can go from there."

Ward nodded. "A fair plan. I did not suggest this idea lightly. We will wait to act until after we determine what the words written on the paper actually are."

"I would also like to let Satoru and Erica in on what we're doing as well. I'm a little more convinced we're all on the same side."

"While I don't share your trust of those two, I will let you proceed as you see fit."

Ami nodded and turned back to the computer. In another few minutes, she had established a link to the supercomputer of her planet's orbiting castle.

Erica was in her department's lab putting some large pieces of electronic equipment into a supply closet. As she worked, she tried not to think too much about the large bluish-grey boulder in the middle of the room. The boulder was in reality a dormant shoggoth. The creature was perfectly harmless in its current state, but it would become a very dangerous threat should it ever wake up. The section of the Knights of Dagon Erica and Satoru was part of focused on finding a way to control the shoggoths. Much of the group's experiments involved members of the department with a high ESP potential sitting in a chair with electrodes attached to their heads as they tried to awaken the dormant shoggoth using brainwaves, and fortunately for Erica and Satoru none of these experiments so far yielded any fruit.

As Erica shut the closet, Satoru entered the room with a dejected expression on his face. The pinkette's eyes followed Satoru as he slumped into a nearby office chair.

"It's about time you returned," Erica spoke as she placed her hands on her hips. "Did you find out who Irene and the others were meeting with?"

Satoru nodded. "They were meeting with some of the Deep Ones, the creatures who 'intermingled' with the people who used to live here in Innsmouth. Ami and I walked in on Irene and her sorority sisters in…in the middle of an orgy with the Deep Ones."

"…Oh! Boy, I'm sure glad I stayed back here then. I have this unfortunate tendency to walk in on people having intercourse, and seeing an orgy like the kind you're talking about would've been the worst instance of that. Wait, Ami was with you?"

"We ran into each other as I was on my way to the meeting sight. I thought she should tag along. Now I wish I had just left her alone…especially after making an ass of myself."

Erica sighed and slumped her arms to her sides. "What did you do?"

"I…I kind of asked Ami about her relationship with Ward. Actually I pretty much…tried to forbid Ami from dating him…I think."

Erica shook her head and cursed something in a Scandinavian-sounding language. "What in Odin's name were you thinking?"

"I-I wasn't! Not really!" Satoru exclaimed as he stood up from his chair. "I just asked Ami if there was anything going on between her and Ward, and well…I just sort of said what I felt. But you agree with me, right? Ami shouldn't be so close to Ward, given what we know about him."

"That's not the point!" Erica ranted as she flailed her arms. "You never tell a woman whom they can or can't date or even be friends with! We hate that! How can someone with such a high IQ like you be so stupid?"

Suddenly there was a knock on the open door to the lab. Satoru and Erica looked and saw Ami standing in the doorway.

"I hope I'm not interrupting anything," Ami spoke.

Erica quickly put on a smile and folded her hands behind her back. "Um, not at all. What can we do for you?"

Ami walked into the lab. "I thought you should know, Charles may have a potential method for us to defeat this Cthulhu the Knights worship should the worst happen."

"I doubt I'm going to like the answer to this question, but what does he have in mind?"

"Charles has a spell which originally belonged to his ancestor, Joseph Curwen. We're translating it to be sure, but Charles believes it's a spell to call forth the power of another god called Yog-Sothoth. If it is, we thought…"

"No! Absolutely not!" Erica told her, cutting her off. "Listen to me now Sailor Mercury, under no circumstances are you to meddle with Yog-Sothoth!"

"Just who or what is this Yog-Sothoth you two are talking about?" Satoru asked.

"He is one of the Outer Gods, a group of entities just as bad if not worse than the Great Old Ones," Erica explained. "Yog-Sothoth is in fact the most powerful of the Outer Gods. He's not an active threat, but if given the chance he would destroy this world and distort all of the universe to his will."

"But we wouldn't be calling forth Yog-Sothoth himself, just borrowing his power," Ami pointed out. "Or at least that's what Charles thinks the spell does."

"The fact he's not even sure is even more of an indication this is a bad idea."

"Well, what other option do with have?" Ami asked. "If Cthulhu is as big a threat as you say he is, there's nothing we can do to stop him."

"Not us, no. But there is one hope Sailor Mercury. The one my teammates and I think can defeat Cthulhu and all of the other Old Ones is your leader, Sailor Moon."

Ami was visibly stunned by this news. "What makes you think Usagi can defeat these Old Ones?"

"It's only a hope really, but after the way Sailor Moon performed against the Chaos entity at the Galaxy Cauldron, my mistress Lady Freyja believes she has the power to end the Old Ones once and for all."

"But you have no proof."

Erica shook her head. "It's a leap of faith I know, but sometimes a leap of faith is your only option."

Ami clenched her fists at her sides. "Well as Usagi's protector, I cannot allow her to become involved in any of this madness."

"In the end, it's not up to you. The stars are now right, and all of the Old Ones are now out and about. The struggle against them is going to pull in everyone and everything. Like it or not, Sailor Moon will eventually have to do battle against Cthulhu and his brethren, or else this world and all of the galaxy will forever become a sea of madness. All we can do is have faith she can prevail."

"That's not good enough, not for me. And it makes me think even more that Charles's plan to use Yog-Sothoth's power may be the best option."

"Don't be foolish! I'm telling you right now Sailor Mercury, do not go along with Ward's plan!"

Ami crossed her arms and glared down at Erica. "I'm only telling you and Satoru about this as a courtesy. You have no more right to order me around than Satoru does."

With those words, Ami stormed out of the room. As soon as she was gone, Erica let out a heavy sigh and shook her head.

"Glad I stayed quiet during most of that," Satoru remarked.

"I did not handle that well at all, did I?" Erica realized. "Guess now we've both damaged our relationship with Ami. And now she's on the verge of doing something extremely foolish. Any ideas what we should do?"

Satoru looked towards the open door. "I'll try talking to her again later after she cools down. It might be a long shot, but there's a chance I might be able to fix things, at least a little. That is if she'll even listen to me."

Reverend Jim was sitting in his office writing a new entry in his dream journal after having taken a short nap. He had been recording his dreams ever since his dreams had become visions sent to him by the great god dwelling in the still submerged city of R'lyeh. In the beginning, Reverend Jim thought the dreams were a sign he was losing his mind, and he started the journal as a way of trying to decode the dreams into something sane. It wasn't long though before Jim realized the dreams were in fact visions from a higher power; the journal merely helped him realize this. Now the journal was merely a means to make sure no detail of his communications with Great Cthulhu was lost.

As Reverend Jim finished his entry, Irene entered his office. She had since gotten dressed after her little meeting with Ami in Ward's office, but she still walked a little funny.

"I trust you and your sisters were able to satisfy our honored guests?" Reverend Jim spoke as he closed his journal.

Irene nodded. "A few of them got satisfied twice. Small problem though, Ami Mizuno and Satoru Petrov walked in our little 'summit'. They didn't disrupt anything, but I thought you should know."

Reverend Jim nodded as he leaned back in his chair, holding the pen he had been using between the palms of his hands. "This is a small problem. Neither of them has been initiated into the inner circle like you and your sorority sisters have. Confronted by a thing like this, a thing they don't understand, they could run to the authorities. The history of what happened to the poor unfortunate souls of Innsmouth could repeat right before our eyes."

"I honestly don't think we need to worry too much about either of them running to the cops. For one thing, who would believe them? I mean a story about some college girls having an orgy with a bunch of fish people? Sounds like something out of a bad movie. Then again, getting rid of Petrov at least might not be such a bad idea. I've always thought there was something about him and that little pink-haired friend of his."

"What about the girl?"

"Ami? Well…it might be worth it to keep her around. She is a genius, she's been a great assistant to Joe from what I've seen, and she is a virgin. It's a long shot, but I might be able to convince her to become a mother to the next generation of Deep Ones."

Reverend Jim nodded. "Earlier I had another dream encounter with Great Cthulhu. He spoke of young Ami, said she has some kind of power connected to the planets. If she were to mate with one of the Deep Ones, her children would become the royal line of the race who will inherit this world once the cleansing is done."

"So what should we do?" Irene asked as she crossed her arms.

"We can leave Petrov alone for now, but I think we need to take Ms. Ami into custody, convince her to donate her body to the cause. Go and talk with our friends from the deep and make it happen."

"They might need a little convincing."

Reverend Jim grinned. "My dear I'm sure you can use your feminine charms to help make our case."

Irene sighed but nodded before turning and heading out the door. "I am gonna be sore tomorrow."

The next morning, Ami exited her hotel room to find Satoru waiting out in the hallway. Satoru requested they talk about the events of the previous night and asked her to come somewhere private. Ami agreed, and Satoru drove them out to the beach in a rented car. The area of beach they visited wasn't too far away from the city limits of Innsmouth, but it was still a comfortable distance away.

"So, what about last night do you want to talk about?" Ami asked, crossing her arms in front of her.

"Well…first of all, I wanted to apologize for the things I said about Ward," Satoru began. "I know I have no right to tell you who you can date or be friends with. The reason I said all that stuff is because I'm just worried about you. It may seem like Ward is on our side, but I don't fully trust him. I just don't want you getting hurt because of something he does."

A small smile formed on Ami's face. "It's sweet of you to worry about me like that. Thank you."

Satoru blushed and quickly changed the subject. "Okay, well…the other thing I wanted to talk to you about is Ward's plan regarding this 'Yog-Sothoth' entity. Do you really think his plan is our best option to stopping the Knights of Dagon and their god?"

"Honestly? I have no idea. At the moment I don't even know if the text he found is really some sort of lost ancient spell to call forth this god of his or not. It's going to take a little while for the computer to fully translate the text, about a day or two at most. Once we find out if the text is really what we think it is, we can go from there. However, if it truly is a spell to call forth the power of an entity that can defeat this Cthulhu, I'm more inclined to rely on it rather than put Usagi in the position of having to fight some kind of undersea god."

Satoru nodded. "I'm forced to agree. Anything that might put your princess in danger would likely endanger my prince as well. If there is a valid alternative to having Sailor Moon fight this Cthulhu, I'm all for it."

Ami was silent for a moment. "I'm actually surprised to hear you say so, given Erica's attitude towards Charles's idea."

"I may be forced to work for Erica, but I don't fully trust her. For one thing, there are certain things about her mission she refuses to tell me. She can turn me back into a broken gemstone if she wants, but the safety of my prince comes before anything else. If it turns out Ward's plan really is our best option, I'll do whatever I can to support it."

Just as Ami was about to thank Satoru, the two of them heard loud splashing sounds from the ocean. The two of them turned just in time to see ten figures bursting from the water. They were Deep Ones, each of them carrying a gold-colored harpoon. The creatures quickly surrounded Ami and Satoru and pointed their weapons at them.

"Blue-haired maiden, you are to come with us," one of the Deep Ones told Ami in a deep frog-like voice.

Ami shuddered. "I have a pretty good idea what they want me for."

"No way in hell I'll let them have you!" Satoru declared.

A second later Satoru became enveloped in a pillar of emerald light, which faded away a second later to reveal his transformation into Zoisite. In the same instant, Ami had also transformed into Sailor Mercury. All ten of the Deep Ones were caught totally off-guard by their transformations. Zoisite drew his sword and charged at the Deep One directly in front of him. He swung his sword down towards the frog-like creature only for the thing to parry with his harpoon and take a stab at him. Zoisite dodged the attack and stabbed the Deep One in the chest with his blade. A second later two more Deep Ones came at him, and in the ensuing clash, he managed to block their attacks and wound another one of them.

Meanwhile, Mercury had brought her hands forward as five of the Deep Ones advanced on her. "Shine Snow Illusion!"

In an instant, all five Deep Ones were hit by a massive wave of ice and snow. When the attack ended, all five of the creatures were frozen solid. Mercury charged at the frozen creatures and hit each one with a strong punch or kick. Each strike caused all of the frozen Deep Ones to shatter like glass. Meanwhile, Zoisite had gotten the group of Deep Ones he had been fighting down to two. He managed to wound the one in front of him in the arm, but the last one had managed to get behind in and impale him through the back.

Mercury had turned around just in time to see the tip of the Deep One's harpoon burst out of Zoisite's chest. In that instant, the entire world around Mercury seemed to move in slow motion. As she watched Zoisite's attacker pull his harpoon back out, Mercury became filled with a mixture of horror, rage, and sorrow. Rage was the emotion that took over Mercury completely, and she cried out and launched another Shine Snow Illusion attack at the Deep One who had impaled Zoisite and froze the creature on the spot. She followed up her to attack the frozen fish-frog with a flying kick, causing him to shatter apart.

The remaining Deep One quickly fled back into the ocean, though Mercury paid no attention to this. Her focus was completely on Zoisite. Mercury got onto her knees and managed to lift the head of her fallen comrade. The harpoon had pierced him right through the heart. Blood was trickling from the corners of his mouth. Once his head was resting on Mercury's lap, Zoisite opened his eyes and smiled up at her. He lifted his hand towards her face, only for it to fall back to the sand as his consciousness faded completely.

Tears were streaming down Mercury's face. She couldn't believe the reality of what was happening in front of her, refused to believe that someone as kind, brilliant, and brave as Zoisite was dying. In Mercury's refusal to believe this reality she cried out, and suddenly a ball of blue light flashed into existence in front of her. The light faded away just enough to reveal a silver and gold wand resembling a Caduceus. At the top of this wand was a round blue gem with the glowing symbol of her planet residing inside. Mercury took hold of the wand, and on instinct, she knew how to use it and what to do.

Mercury quickly but gently set Zoisite down on the ground and got to her feet. She knew she only had a few seconds before brain death occurred to perform this next move. Taking her new wand in both hands, Mercury lifted it above her head as the light from its gemstone intensified.

As the light of the wand intensified, Mercury swung it down and pointed it at Zoisite. "Mercury Life Flow Healing!"

Mercury's body began to glow with a soft blue aura as a stream of blue light streamed from the wand onto Zoisite's wound. In a matter of seconds, the wound started to close up and the blood coming from Zoisite's mouth had vanished. At the same time though, Mercury was starting to feel very faint. The reason was that this technique she was using to heal Zoisite's wound took energy from her own life force. Saving Zoisite's life required her to risk her own.

In another few seconds, Zoisite's injury had totally healed and he had started to breathe normally. Mercury breathed a sigh of relief as she shut off the beam and lowered her wand. Suddenly Mercury was hit by a wave of dizziness, and she lost consciousness as her knees buckled and she fell to the ground.

Author's Note: I want to give another big thanks to my beta reader for this story, masterray5. He helped me a bit with the battle scene in this story. I don't know why, but for some reason the battle scenes for this particular story have been particularly challenging to write.

Also, since Christmas Eve and Christmas Day are at the end of this week, there's likely to be a longer delay than usual with getting the next chapter up. So until next time, I wish everyone a happy holiday.

Please review and let me know what you think.