Introduction: I'd like to welcome everyone to the next installment in the series of Sailor Moon fanfics I'm calling "The Old Gods Saga". This story is from a part of the series I'm referring to as the Shitennou Cycle, and takes place at about the same time as the two stories I've done previously, Bride of the Yellow King and The Witch of Glenwood Manor. It's not necessary to read those two stories to understand what's going on in this one, though if you haven't read those two stories yet I do hope that you'll give them a look.
I should probably warn now though, this story probably won't be as Lovecraftian as the previous two stories. Actually it's based on an old idea I had back in high school but never fully developed (mainly because I didn't know fan fiction was a thing back then). I'd go into more details but I don't want to spoil what's about to happen, so let's just get right into it.
Disclaimer: I do not own Sailor Moon.
Prologue: Face
It was just past 7:00 PM as Rei Hino rode the elevator up to the current apartment of her friend, Ami Mizuno. Tonight Rei and Ami were meeting with their other two friends, Makoto Kino and Minako Aino to have a little movie night as a way of celebrating their impending trips, though Rei's upcoming trip to Kyoto wasn't something she wanted to celebrate but rather get out of. Unfortunately she hadn't been able to find anything close to a good excuse for why she couldn't go. At last the elevator came to a stop on the floor of Ami's apartment. In just a few moments the raven-haired priestess was knocking on Ami's door.
Only seconds the door opened and Ami greeted Rei with a smile. "Good evening, Rei. The others only got here a couple of minutes ago. Come on in."
The blunette then stepped aside and allowed Rei to enter. As she came in, Rei was once again struck by just how big Ami's place was, almost as big as the apartment Ami had shared with her mother. Being the daughter of a doctor certainly had its advantages. As Rei looked around the apartment, Makoto was walking out of the kitchen carrying a tray of snacks the brown-haired girl had to have made herself.
Makoto noticed that Rei had arrived and smiled. "Glad you could make it, Rei. We're almost ready to go. I just need to set these out and get the wine."
"Take your time," Rei responded as she followed Makoto and Ami to the little area serving as the apartment's living room.
When Rei arrived in the living room with the others, she immediately spotted Minako sitting in one of the chairs at the end of the large coffee table, with her nose buried in some idol magazine.
As soon as Rei sat down on the end of the couch facing the coffee table and the T.V., Minako finally looked up from her magazine and smiled. "Hi Rei! Excited about your big trip to Kyoto?"
Rei rolled her eyes. "Don't even start. You know what this trip is about just like I do. It's not a cause for celebration."
By this time, Ami sat down on the couch next to Rei while Makoto poured everyone a glass of red wine. Once everyone had gotten their glass, they all raised them in preparation for a toast, though Rei was more than a little reluctant to raise hers.
"Here's to success to our trips 'round the world!" Minako declared. She and the others then all sipped from their glasses.
"You know, it's a shame Usagi can't be here for this," Makoto remarked.
"Oh come on, Mako. Usagi's in a way better place than the rest of us right now," Minako told her. "As we speak, she and Mamoru are probably lounging on a beach in Hawaii right now, with Mamoru rubbing sunscreen on her back." She sighed and took another sip of wine. "If only the rest of us could be so lucky."
"You're pretty lucky too though, Mina," Ami interjected. "I mean you did get the role for that movie being filmed in England."
Minako grinned. "Thanks Ami, but I'd like to think that was more talent than luck."
"Something about that movie you're starring in still seems a little shady to me," Rei remarked. "I mean I've certainly never heard of the company that's making it."
"Jeez Rei. You sound just as bad as Artemis! I'm sure it'll be fine."
"Even if the movie Mina's in is just a low-budget production, it'd still be a good starting point for her career," Ami pointed out.
"Thank you for your positive reinforcement, Ami," Minako told her. "And also, I hope you have fun checking out that school. What's it called again?"
"Miskatonic University. It's supposed to be a very fine old school."
"I don't know, Ami. I did some reading on this university you're visiting, and I found out a couple of weird things about it," Makoto interjected. "Apparently they once had a student back in the early 1900s who experimented with raising the dead."
Ami smiled and shook her head. "I'm sure the story you're talking about is nothing more than some colorful urban legend or something. Anyway Mako, I hope you enjoy visiting your boyfriend's home town in Nebraska."
"I have to admit I am pretty excited. Austin said that I'd love the place."
Minako shook her head. "I still think that guy's all wrong for you Mako. There's just something about him that's…I don't know, off."
Makoto sighed. "Will you give it a rest Mina? You've been over this about a hundred times now."
"I think Austin is a nice match for Mako," Ami interjected. "He's quite nice, and a brilliant medical student. Plus Usagi and Mamoru were the ones who picked him."
Minako sighed. "Well, Austin does seem to be loaded, so he's got that going for him at least. Anyway, I guess the thing to remember is that things are looking up right now for all of us."
"Maybe for you three, but not for me," Rei pointed out as she took another sip from her glass, which was now half-empty. "While the rest of you are going off to either have fun or pursue your careers, I'm going to Kyoto to deal with my father."
"Oh…yeah. That's rough, Rei," Makoto responded. "What do you think he wants?"
"I'm guessing he's wants to try and get me to go along with some new marriage arrangement he's gotten me into."
Ami nodded. "It's bad enough that Usagi's already trying to play matchmaker for the rest of us."
Rei couldn't help but cringe when Ami brought that up. Usagi's little crusade to find all of them the perfect boyfriend started one day when she and Minako were out to lunch, and Minako had let it slip the four of them had decided to put their duty to protect Usagi before anything else. Of course their future queen wasn't going to let her four best friends become a bunch of lonely spinsters just for her sake, thus Usagi's matchmaking efforts quickly began. So far though Usagi's only success was with setting Makoto up with one of Mamoru's med school friends, Austin Glenwood, but if Minako was right, such a match-up was probably doomed to eventual failure. Since getting Makoto and Austin matched up, Usagi had been focusing her efforts on Ami and had so far been striking out.
To Rei's relief, it seemed Usagi was saving her and Minako for last, since the two of them were more of a challenge. Unfortunately Rei had only made things worse for herself one night when she and Usagi had gone out drinking not long after the blonde's lunch with Minako. In the course of trying to dissuade Usagi's matchmaking efforts, Rei had told the blonde that she had sworn her chastity to Usagi back during the Silver Millennium. Upon hearing this, Usagi had made an outburst so loud it nearly got them thrown out of the bar. Ever since, Usagi had been hell bent on getting Rei and the others fixed up with someone even if it killed them.
"Okay! This conversation's sort of taken a bad turn," Minako interrupted. "Let's just forget about all this and watch a movie. Ami, you're up!"
Ami nodded and fired up her T.V., brining up the menu for the streaming service she subscribed to. The blunette began to scroll through the available movie choices. So far none of the selections looked very appealing.
"Oh! Oh! Ami! Scroll back to that last one!" Minako requested as she excitedly pointed at the screen.
The movie that Ami scrolled back to was an old sci-fi film from the 1980s called Invaders from Mars. It only had a rating of two and a half stars, and was apparently a remake of an older and probably goofier movie made back during the 1950s. Rei let out a heavy sigh as soon as she saw the movie's title, because she knew exactly why Minako had asked Ami to scroll back to it.
Minako shot Rei a big mischievous grin. "How 'bout it Rei? Wanna watch a movie where your home planet tries to take over Earth?"
Rei rolled her eyes. "I'd like to know how the hell most of the world came to think of my mother planet as the one populated with all the monsters wanting to take over Earth!"
"Well, Mars was the first planet thought to be capable of supporting life besides Earth," Ami pointed out. "I fact during the time of H.G. Wells, the author of War of the Worlds, astronomers thought they had found certain evidence that Mars had at least one point supported intelligent life. As all of us know, those astronomers weren't totally wrong."
"Didn't they once find what looked like a giant face that was carved on the surface of Mars?" Makoto asked.
"Ah! Very good Mako!" Ami enthusiastically praised. "A NASA probe did indeed discover something that looked like a face back in the late 1970s. It was quite the rage back then because most people who saw it thought it was conclusive proof that intelligent life had once existed on Mars."
"I've never heard of this face," Rei interjected.
"Well let me show you then." Ami then picked up her tablet off the coffee table and fired it up. "The face was located in a region of Mars classified as Cydonia. They also found evidence of what looked like a five-sided pyramid not far away. Ah! Here we go. Take a look, Rei."
Ami then held the tablet before Rei. Its screen showed a grey and somewhat speckled picture of her home planet's surface. In the center of the picture at an angle was a large rock formation that did indeed look like a face that was half cast in shadow from the way the sun was hitting it. As Rei looked at the face she found it to be familiar somehow…and she suddenly found that she was filled with an intense fear. Rei felt certain she had seen the face somewhere before, but as she tried to recall where her fear only intensified; a part of her didn't want to remember.
As Rei struggled to recall the face, she suddenly felt as though the one visible eye of it in the picture was gazing at her, and that it was glowing the color of blood. By this point her heart was hammering in her chest and her hands were starting to tremble like mad. Her face went totally pale when she suddenly thought she heard the face hissing at her. Rei screamed and knocked the tablet out of Ami's hands with so much force it flew across the room and nearly hit Minako in the head. The raven-haired priestess meanwhile had run from the couch and crouched against the living room wall near the floor, trembling. She was hardly aware of it when Ami had started shaking her by the shoulders and calling her name.
Eventually Rei came to her senses and saw her three friends surrounding her, looking down at her with great concern. It took Rei a few moments for her to realize exactly what had happened.
At last Rei got back to her feet. "I'm sorry, I…I don't know what got into me."
"Rei, it looked like you had a panic attack," Ami told her.
"It…it was that face. I know it from somewhere, but…I can't remember. When I tried I just…felt so scared."
"Rei…you should know that more recent satellite scans of Mars have revealed the face to be nothing more than a trick of the light. Thanks to high-quality cameras we now know the face is nothing more than a simple mountain."
Rei shook her head furiously. "No…no, that's not right! I've seen that face somewhere before!"
"Rei, Ami just said that it isn't real," a worried Makoto told her. "You're just imagining things."
"What? You're saying I'm losing my mind? Is that it? You think I've gone crazy? I know that face is real and I know I've seen it before!"
"Chill out, Rei!" Minako cut in. "Look, I'm sorry I teased you before, and we're all sorry you saw that stupid photo! Now chill out and let's just watch a damn movie!"
"The three of you can do whatever the hell you want!" Rei told them as she stormed off towards the door. "I'm leaving! It was a mistake coming here tonight!"
Before any of the others could respond, Rei left the apartment, slamming the door behind her. By the time she finally got in the elevator moments later, she finally relaxed and leaned against the wall. Rei had realized she had totally overreacted to the whole thing and would have to apologize to the girls, but not now. She suddenly found she was far too tired for anything like that. Rei decided she would try calling Minako and the others in the morning or at least text them, but at the moment she found all she wanted to do was go home and sleep.
Author's Note: Part of the reason for this prologue was to establish was the other Inners will have going on while Rei is dealing with her father. Those of you who have read the previous stories in the series should already know how Minako and Makoto's trips went.
Incidentally, the 1980s version of the movie, Invaders from Mars mentioned in this prologue was one of the big inspirations for the idea that eventually became this story. But again, I don't want to say too much lest I spoil what's to happen in this story.
The first chapter of this story should also be up now, so if you like, please proceed on ahead.