Chapter 20

Ami wished, not for the millionth time, she could access her Mercury computer. It would have come in handy at least a million times on this god-forsaken trip, but none more than now, as they all stared stupidly at Touma.

Around them, ash rained and dust settled, but Ami just….kept staring.

Touma had called his weapon.

Touma had called his weapon.

Touma had called his weapon.

And he'd managed to launch his surekill.

If the archer's current condition was any indication however, doing so took much more from the Troopers than it did from the Senshi. Touma was paler than usual, sweating, shaking, and panting as though he'd just run a Triathlon.

He was leaning heavily against a nearby stone.

Still on the ground nearby, Minako was staring up at him, dazed, while Usagi stared at him in awe from her position with Makoto. "Touma-chan! That was so amazing!" she gushed, clasping her hands in front of her and beaming at him as if he were some kind of musical idol.

Touma flushed, looking uncomfortable, but the embarrassment at least brought some color back into his face.

"That….was….AWESOME! Did you SEE THAT!?" Shuu hooted, leaping forward and gathering Tenku up into a back-cracking squeeze. The archer squelched, his face losing that scant amount of color as he grunted with the impact.

"Shuu…" he wheezed.

"Hey, easy Shuu. Give him some space," Shin approached and patted Shuu on the back. The warrior of Kongo flushed self-consciously but dropped Tenku immediately. Touma staggered, falling back against the stone and resting there, his features tightening in a wince of pain and his breath still coming in heavy pants. Ami didn't like the way he looked. He needed time to recover. Preferably time not running and fighting. Or they were going to be down two people instead of one.

Ryo moved forward, concern on his face. "Touma man, you ok?" he queried softly. Touma sighed, rubbing his face and sliding his hands into his hair. "That…sucked," he groaned. When they chuckled with him in commiseration, he cleared his throat, meeting their gazes. He shook his head.

"No," he said quietly, commanding everyone's attention. "I mean that was bad. I don't think I have a lot of those in me. Not without access to my armor." He blew out another breath and tousled his bangs with his fingers, looking down at where Makoto lay in Usagi's lap. "If the scouts need to treat their powers like a resource with an expiration, we need to treat ours as a last resort," he finished quietly. Ami noticed that he seemed to be improving, slowly but surely.

Still. He looked….exhausted now. And he was still leaning against the stone, keeping his weight off his feet. She furrowed her brow, assessing both the warrior and the situation, trying to understand why it cost Touma so much more to use his powers when the Senshi seemed to have an easier time using their own.

After running through what she knew about both groups and applying it to the current situation, she thought she might understand.

"It's a multi-level process," she concluded, murmuring to herself. "They have to have enough energy to pull the weapon and the energy to create the attack." She nodded, even as she felt her anxiety kick up. This wasn't welcomed news.

Things had been just fine when they'd all assumed the Troopers couldn't call their armor. They'd had a strategy. She cast her gaze over Ryo with new eyes, trying to predict if he would act rashly, depleting himself of energy in some noble bid to keep her from using her own. The Troopers might be able to carry the Senshi, but the Senshi probably wouldn't be able to carry the Troopers.

From beside her, Rei scowled. "That's not welcome news," she grumbled, echoing Ami's exact thoughts as she cast her gaze over an exhausted-looking Minako. Ami nodded, studying the Senshi of Venus with an analytical gaze. The girl was so worn out she was going to pass out if she tried to stand up.

"This is bad," she murmured quietly to Rei. The priestess nodded, schooling her features into their usual pout.

"Very bad," Rei agreed quietly as they looked over their group from the sidelines.

Ami had no idea if the monsters they'd just faced were a sign that they were getting closer to the final enemy, or if they'd simply been a blip on a horizon littered with many more monsters just like them. Either way, their collective wouldn't be able to sustain many more hits and come out successful.

Ami turned her gaze on Usagi, who was watching the Troopers' exchange with a calculated, focused expression, her features determined now, even as she cradled the head of an unconscious Makoto in her lap. To see the normally oblivious, happy Usagi looking so focused and thoughtful gave Mercury pause and sent up a few red flags about what course of action Usagi might contemplating.

No. None of this was good. Ami felt the stirrings of panic nibbling at the edge of her rational thought. She leaned toward Rei. "If they're smart enough to keep isolating us like that in battle…" she murmured, keeping her voice low as she trailed off, unable to finish the thought. Mars nodded.

"Yes. I was thinking the same thing," she agreed, her gaze also on Usagi.

Despite the Troopers' promise, Ami felt they were in the same position as they'd been before. It was almost as if the enemy had known their strategy and planned accordingly. Rei's head snapped around to the side and Ami immediately followed her gaze, narrowing her eyes at the surrounding stones, trying to see what Rei was seeing.

Everyone else was still focused on Touma save the two of them. The change in the air was subtle, easy to miss. In fact, if Rei hadn't caught on to it, Ami might have missed it entirely. As it was, she felt her hair stand on end as something dark and lightning-fast ruffled through the grass with serpentine motion in their direction. She had just enough time to gasp as it moved to strike, before their new assailant was blocked.

By….Minako?

Ami stared hard at the younger, thinner, and deader version of Sailor Venus where she stood with her arm out, blocking the snake-like monster from their path. It's maw bit hard around her arm, but the corpse Venus didn't seem bothered by it. With her other hand, she knocked it away as if it might be a fly instead of a serpent. In front of Ami, Rei gasped, staggering backward, colliding with her and clutching one hand in the robes draped over her heart. Ami grabbed at Rei's shoulders, trying to steady her but in a similar state of shock.

"Begone from this place." The dead Minako's voice was a dry, empty rasp. Quiet, but everywhere and nowhere at once, including right in her ears. Ami shuddered, hunching her shoulders up in a feeble attempt to dampen the sound.

"Crescent Beam." The attack was not a yell. It was a hiss from a voice with no emotion.

And it was scary.

The attack itself decimated the monster in moments with an explosion of orange light. Ami tried not to have a panic attack on the spot. It wasn't a convenient time to hyperventilate, but of all the things she'd considered, a zombie Venus with full Venus powers hadn't even been on the list.

A zombie Venus. With access to the powers of Venus.

It seemed grossly unfair to be facing an enemy using the very powers they couldn't touch against them. Ami clutched tighter at Rei and Mars returned the favor, turning so they were hugging each other now. Rei's eyes were huge in her face.

The new visitor hadn't attracted attention, but the Crescent Beam certainly had. Ryo turned from the huddle around Touma to take in the situation, frowning.

"Ami what—" he saw the zombie Venus and his eyes went huge in his face. Ami blinked, and he was at her side so quickly he might have teleported there, putting himself between her and Rei and ….Sailor Venus? He dropped into a battle stance, joined shortly by Shin and Shuu while a pale and shaken Seiji remained with Touma and the other Senshi.

Minako looked…ill. But beneath her greenish complexion and haunted eyes lurked a dark curiosity. She rose unsteadily, walking over to their cluster almost as if in a daze. Seiji looked like he might protest, but Minako didn't seem in a state to appreciate his reservations. She paused just short of her undead clone, her stance a little unsteady.

"You're….me," she whispered at it. She looked like someone witnessing a terrible tragedy – not quite part of the tableau but still deeply shaken by it. Ami didn't blame her for being a little…disconnected from reality right now. She was still worn out from the previous battle, which probably wasn't helping.

The zombie twisted its neck much too far for a normal human's flexibility and regarded the living Venus with a curious tilt of its head. It opened its mouth and Ryo reacted, grabbing Minako's wrist and yanking her behind him. He glowered at it fiercely as it moved its head to follow them. Shin and Shuu pushed in to cover all of them, faces stony.

The zombie didn't turn around. It just turned its head around to take them all in completely.

"Oh, that's awful," Minako whispered, her face going grey just before she hit the dirt at the sight. Seiji made a noise in his throat but didn't move to leave the weakened part of their group. Ami yelped with surprise, she and Rei dropping to their knees immediately. Rei propped Minako up and shook her by the shoulders, calling her name. In front of her, Ryo, Shin, and Shuu tensed up, the Bearer of Kongo letting out a growl.

"What the hell did you do to Minako you creep?!" he snarled.

The zombie tilted its head again, the dry bones and flesh of its too-twisted neck making a creaking noise that admittedly made Ami want to find a quiet corner herself and lie down awhile. Beneath Rei's hands, Minako moaned, coming around.

"Oh. Rei. I had the most awful dream. We were in the Underworld, and there was this zombie me, and—"

"Minako, you dope! We are in the Underworld, and there is a zombie you!" the priestess sounded like she just might be on her very last frayed nerve, and Ami winced. She understood Rei's exasperation, but in Minako's defense, she'd just confronted her undead reflection, and deserved a bit of space to deal with it. Venus turned a disturbing mix of green and grey, putting her fingers over her mouth.

"Oh. I thought…I was hoping…I don't…" she whispered, unable to finish her thoughts. Her face flickered with a variety of emotions – fear most prominent among them. "What does she want?" she finally asked, curling in on herself, wrapping her arms around her knees. Ami gave Minako a brief smile, resolved then to find out exactly what this zombie wanted. She rose, setting her fear aside. Or at least, storing it away for later, when she had the time and the space to process it.

"I guess we'd better ask her," she replied to Venus in an even, matter-of-fact tone. Minako nodded absently, giving her corpse clone a side-eye, as if she couldn't bear to look at it all head on. Ami knew the feeling. She didn't really want the full view either but the problem should be faced head on.

Placing her hand on Ryo's shoulder, she attempted to leverage herself so she could better see the monster. He growled at her and moved, blocking her line of sight. Ami blinked as she stood behind he and the other Troopers. While she was grateful for the show of protective instincts, their current configuration wasn't going to get them anywhere.

So. Ami straightened her spine, and chin up, she simply marched around the Troopers' barricade and put her hands on her hips, addressing the zombie Venus before Ryo could react. "What do you want with us?" she asked it firmly. Its head unwound a bit as it turned to stare at her, and Ryo made a strangled noise from beside her, shooting her an accusatory look that she ignored.

"We are here to help carry you through the Underworld." The zombie's voice was still a terrifying hiss of sound, and it was impossible for her not to hunch her shoulders around her ears when she heard it. "You are at a disadvantage and there are those who seek to even the playing field," it continued.

"Seek to even the playing field…" Ami muttered, putting a hand to her chin in thought. Rei hadn't felt the Goddess would intervene on their behalf, believing that divine politics played a part. But what if Izanami was more involved than they thought? Certainly, she would have a stake in driving out the invaders in her land. But why their past dead selves? That seemed like a cruel and vindictive way to offer help.

"But why you, in particular?" she wondered out loud. The zombie Venus twitched its lips up at her in what Ami supposed was a smile.

"There are no rules to say which Senshi may help the Troopers in this battle, or how many Senshi may be present," she replied. Ami blinked, feeling a surge of triumph.

"Of course!" she yelled, slamming her fist into her open palm. When the others all looked at her with varying degrees of concern and discomfort, Ami flushed.

"There are lots of dead Senshi around to help, and since they're Senshi, it's not violating the clause that called the Senshi here in the first place. It's helping without helping," Touma rasped from behind her, his exhaustion present in his tone. "And since they're dead, they're subjects of Izanami's and don't fall under the influence of the enemy. There wouldn't be any blocks on their ability to use their powers. Their full power. More than that, the enemy won't be looking for them or targeting them."

Venus gasped, straightening. "There's a lot of us! We've got potentially a small army of fully powered Senshi! YESSS!" she pumped her fist in the air and then made a face. "Huh. Never thought I'd be cheering at the idea of working with my dead past selves. Things just got weird," she muttered.

Ami frowned as something occurred to her. "And Sailor Moon?" she asked the zombie. The Moon Princess let out a frightened squeak at the sound of her title, but Ami tuned her out as the zombie shook its head with an awful crackling sound.

"The Silver Crystal is only ever accessible to living members of the Lunar Royalty," it replied. Ami bit her lip, nodding. On the one hand. Having another Silver Crystal around that didn't drain Usagi would have been optimal.

On the other hand, there was the entire idea of a zombie Moon Princess wielding a Silver Crystal.

Probably best they didn't have to address that. Just trying to think about how the zombie Senshi were able to wield the powers of their living counterparts was giving her head pains. They all stood in awkward silence for a moment, the Troopers still at the ready while the Senshi just seemed lost. Shuu inhaled suddenly, looking confused.

"Uh. Lunar Royalty?" he asked, looking at Ami. Ami frowned at him absently, her brain still mulling around the whole zombie issue.

Minako gave Shuu a blank look before the expression cleared. She jerked a thumb in Usagi's direction. "Lunar Royalty," she said with a sage nod. Shuu looked at Usagi with wide eyes, as if he was seeing her for the first time. The Moon Princess smiled weakly and gave a tiny wave.

"That's not important right now," she said in a quavering voice that echoed over the barren bit of field between their two clusters. Ami nodded. There wasn't a zombie Usagi, and only living members of the royal family could wield the silver crystal.

She'd take her blessings where she could find them.

Especially since she wasn't particularly looking forward to working with zombies, let alone zombies of her own past lives. Ami shuddered, biting her lip as she studied the Minako zombie. It was looking at the living Minako a bit too keenly for Ami's taste.

How in the world were they going to work with their own dead past lives?