PRETTY SOLDIER SAILOR MOON: FUTURE

Chapter 41: Alliance of Verdant Green

Varan noticed Makoto and JunJun transform into their Sailor Soldier identities and grumbled, "Curses. I suppose it's time for Jouji to prove his true usefulness."

She raised her arm and commanded, "Erisian! Devour that man's form and rain your hatred upon the world!"

Jouji suddenly doubled over and screamed in pain as pure darkness snaked out of his chest and wrapped around his body, momentarily turning him into a silhouette. Then the darkness blew off him like a tornado, forcing Jupiter and Juno to keep their footing. When they looked at him again, he was now wearing a black and red armored bodysuit that reached up to his lower jaw but kept the rest of his face out in the open. The Apple of Discord could be seen shining on his breastplate for a second, but a layer of armor closed over it. Jouji's expression was extremely sinister as he glared at the Sailor Soldiers.

"This can't be! Does this mean we have to fight him!?" Jupiter exclaimed, frightened at the prospect of treating her old boyfriend like a common monster.

"Oy, get it together! That ain't the man you once knew!" Juno chided.

"I know, but…"

Jouji instantly took this opportunity to wave his arm and send a vicious wave of dark energy at the two warriors, blowing them off their feet and sending them tumbling across the pavement. Naru and Umino were caught in the maelstrom as well, but he grabbed her head and shoulder tightly and acted as a human shield for her as they collided to the ground. His head hit the concrete with a dull thud, and she inspected him with horror in her eyes.

"Umino!" Naru shrieked, holding his bleeding head in her arm.

"H-Hey, Naru. You okay?" Umino grunted.

"Oh no! What have I gotten you into!?"

"It's no biggie… Look, I got… the photos…" he struggled to show her the pictures.

"It's okay. I don't need to see them anymore," she rested her hand on his. "Let's get you to safety. The Sailor Soldiers will take care of that monster."

Even though she said that, Naru feel extremely uncomfortable with calling her two-timing fiancé a monster. At this very moment though, she was more worried for her long time friend as she helped him up and guided him inside his store. Jouji noticed them moving about and shot several black electric bolts at them.

"Supreme Thunder!" Jupiter shouted and countered with her own bright white electricity, canceling each other out with a fantastic explosion. Juno rushed through the smoke and appeared in front of Jouji. Before he could react, she did a roundhouse kick to his face. It didn't seem to bother him as he got back into his fighting stance and charged at Juno with an array of punches. He landed one successful hit to her face, but while he was distracted with her, Jupiter barged in and jammed her elbow against his chest, hoping to break through the armor protecting the Apple of Discord. The attempt failed though, and Jouji grabbed her arm and tossed her over his shoulder towards a building. Juno leapt and caught her partner in time, and they landed safely.

Meanwhile, Nephrite and Varan were locked in their own battle. Since he was able to manipulate his own shadow, he sent it flying into a nearby tailor's shop where it possessed some mannequins wearing elaborate outfits. He controlled the dolls to come outside and surround Varan in a circle formation. She didn't appear amused as she muttered, "I have felled entire armies such as this. I cannot see how you hope to detain me with such a paltry force."

"Heh. You must have been playing around with some pretty weak armies then," Nephrite scoffed.

"Not as pathetic as this though."

He silently commanded the mannequins to grab hold of her body and limbs in order to restrain her. To his surprise, she made no attempt to struggle out of her bounds – in contrast, she actually seemed humored by his efforts. He kept his guard up because of her complacency while enveloping the dolls in energy, causing them to detonate like bombs. The smoke cleared and, to Nephrite's absolute astonishment, Varan remained standing there as if nothing ever happened!

"Impossible!" he yelped, but only before realizing what was going on. A violet aura surrounded the Camarilla's body and had apparently guarded her from the explosion.

"Lavender Aegis," Varan explained. "As long as I remain perfectly still, not even a nuclear bomb will harm me."

"As long as you stay still, huh? Thanks for revealing your weakness to me," Nephrite smirked. He kneeled and slammed his palm against the ground, then a magic circle formed around his opponent's feet and generated an explosion that knocked her into the air and made her cancel the Lavender Aegis.

"I've got you!" he shouted, spreading his arms out. His shadow stretched and warped until a volley of black spears materialized and shot straight for her.

"You must be kidding me," Varan drawled and chanted, "Elegant Javelin Pierce."

She created a single purple javelin and sent it at the shadow spears. Since it was a material weapon versus an intangible shadow, the javelin broke through the onslaught of dark spears and continued on its course straight for Nephrite's heart. He twisted his body aside, but only just barely as the spear dug through flesh on his shoulder and upper back, causing him to collapse to the ground in pain.

"Are you done struggling? Then disappear already," the Camarilla muttered and created a naginata in her hands, intent on stabbing him to death with it. She thrust once at his head, but he ducked low and rolled across the pavement. She followed him and stabbed into the ground, narrowly missing him each time. Before she could slay him though, she noticed something shining off to her side and instinctively raised her weapon in front of her head. The shining object turned out to be a silver arrow that dug into the naginata's shaft just in front of her skull. While she was distracted, Nephrite teleported away from her and reappeared some distance away to regain his composure. Varan immediately knew who tried to kill her with the arrow and looked around with anger in her eyes.

Damn you, Hyena!

During the other battle, Jupiter noticed Nephrite's bleeding wound and desperately wanted to rush to his aid. Jouji wouldn't let her go as he appeared in front of her, grabbed her head and slammed his knee against her face. She collapsed in sheer pain, covering her nose and trembling. Juno grabbed Jouji's hands and struggled against him in a contest of strength, hoping that she would buy Jupiter some time to recover.

"Damn it… He's… too strong…!" Juno grunted.

That was when another arrow pierced through Jouji's shoulder, stunning him enough that Juno could push him away with a strong gust of wind. The Sailor Soldiers found Sailor Arsenic Hyena standing atop a fire escape staircase poised with her bow. Juno happily snapped her fingers and exclaimed, "Finally! Took you long enough to get here!"

"Pardon my tardiness, but I was momentarily preoccupied with assisting Nephrite," Hyena replied before jumping down to ground level. She readied her weapon again and told Jupiter, "Allow me to assist Sailor Juno. You should join Nephrite's side in battling Varan."

"Thank you so much! Be careful, okay!?" Jupiter called out and ran towards the other battle. As she retreated, Jouji gathered several spheres of dark energy and hurled them at her.

"Quiescent Hail," Hyena murmured and fired a shot which multiplied into countless green needles that pierced the orbs and caused them to explode harmlessly.

"Tyaaaaahhhh!" Juno let out an Amazonian battle cry as she dashed in and kicked at Jouji's chest, but he crossed his arms to block the blow. She performed several more deft kicks that he parried, then she called out, "Juno Tempest Dance!" and surrounded her arms in viridian wind, granting her superhuman agility and speed. She launched into a blinding flurry of punches, yet somehow Jouji reacted to them with precise blocks that amazed Juno. When he found an opening, he performed a sudden high kick to her chin, forcing her to flip backwards a few times. With a wild grin, Jouji tried to tackle Juno while she was off her guard.

"Dew of Death," Hyena chanted and fired a single arrow in front of him that exploded, knocking him back so forcefully that he skidded on his feet.

Juno recovered from her attack and exclaimed, "What's goin' on here!? Is this like one of those Black Apples that corrupted Uranus before!?"

"Not quite. It's still an Apple of Discord, but apparently it's feeding off of only Jouji rather than absorbing from a large crowd as usual," Hyena deduced. "Now that a civilian is involved, we must take extra care with focusing our attacks without harming him. Not to mention that this apple appears to have had a significant amount of time to gather its energy, so the Erisian will be a lot stronger than usual. With Jupiter and Nephrite busy with Varan, we have to defeat him ourselves."

"Damn, things just got real complicated, haven't they!? Even if I called Chibi-Moon, she wouldn't get here in time!"

"On the plus side, at least this Erisian can only harness energy from one person… Or is it two?" Hyena murmured, sensing another's hatred emanating from the monster. Then she realized, Of course. It's been in both Jouji and Varan's proximity, so it must have been feeding off of her own negative feelings as well. She must have known that would happen, especially since she despises me for what I did to Naja. If my theory is correct, I could get the Erisian to behave the way I want it to…

"You go left, and I will go right," she whispered to Juno. Before the other Soldier could argue, Jouji dashed in to try and grab their necks. The two warriors did as told and dove in opposite directions. He ignored Juno and immediately went after Hyena, flailing his arms in a series of punches that she dodged. She ducked and rolled aside when he punched the wall she had been forced against, both to avoid his attack and to get out of Juno's way as she landed an impressive flying kick against Jouji's back. A portion of his breastplate cracked, and he swatted her aside in fury before pursuing Hyena again.

"Hey, don't you just ignore me like that, buster!" she fumed angrily and tackled him down. He roared like a berserker and generated an orb of black energy around his body that spread out like a shockwave and separated the Sailor Soldiers. While tumbling upside-down in the air, Hyena fired an array of Dew of Deaths at Jouji's feet as he ran after her from below. None of the explosions seemed to deter him as he kept his eyes on her. She caught a light post and swung onto it, and he fervently climbed up using his claws. She leapt off at the last second and shot another explosive arrow at his exposed armor, detonating it right in front of him and causing him to fall backwards onto the pavement.

When the carnage settled, Hyena could see that even bigger cracks began to form in his breastplate. Juno hurried to rejoin her comrade, and Hyena said, "Just as I thought."

"What're you talkin' about? Are you sayin' you knew he was gonna follow you!?"

"Remember that he's taken in Varan's negative emotions as well, which have been focused upon me as of late. An Erisian's behavior is a reflection of the hatred and fear it has absorbed from surrounding people. Therefore, Jouji's attention is more focused on me due to Varan's hatred."

"Then you've been acting like a lure for me to attack him!?"

"Precisely, although I will find openings of my own as well. As we are performing quite decently at this pace, I will continue to distract him. All you need to do is continue attacking his armor. That will expose the Apple of Discord, and I can destroy it from there."

"I don't like the idea of you acting as bait, but we don't have a choice, do we?" Juno clenched her teeth.

"Indeed, our options are very limited. Let's do this quickly before the Erisian figures out our strategy."

"Nephrite!" Jupiter yelled at her partner, grabbing his shoulders before he could stumble backwards.

"Jupiter… I really messed up this time, haven't I?" he moaned.

"I'm here now."

Varan spun her naginata about and grumbled, "So the princess comes to save the prince. What a sorry ending to this little fairy tale."

"I won't forgive you! Take this! Sparkling Wide Pressure!" the Soldier shouted and threw a single disc of pure electricity at Varan. She batted it with her weapon, dissipating the attack with a flash of lightning, and then charged at her new foe. Varan tried to stab Jupiter's abdomen, but she grabbed the weapon and refused to let go as she glared at her opponent square in the eye.

"Earth's warriors certainly have a lot of luck on their side," the Camarilla snapped. "If this were a battle in Alkima, there would already be casualties."

"You've caused a lot more suffering than necessary! Naru, Umino, Nephrite, myself, and even Jouji! You were even going to kill Midori! What does she have to do with any of this!?" Jupiter demanded.

"That's none of your concern," Varan murmured calmly. "All of you are going to die anyway."

"Not on my watch, sister!" The Sailor Soldier's arm crackled with electricity as if responding to her fury, and the arcs of energy traveled across the lance and shocked the Camarilla.

"Che-!" Varan gasped and stepped back, brushing aside Jupiter like she was a pesky insect. However, the assault cracked her mask and crystalline pieces clattered to the ground. To Jupiter and Nephrite's horror, they could see a portion of Varan's mouth, which contained rows of horrendously jagged and uneven amethysts functioning as teeth. Her tongue was serpentine, which flicked about in her mouth as she shouted with the rage of a thousand demons, "Now you've done it!"

"So your true form is finally revealed!" Nephrite exclaimed.

"'True form'!? All of you are the same, no matter which part of the universe I go to! This is what I was born with! Don't be so arrogant as to call someone a monster when they have no control over their physical appearance!"

"Ah…"

"No matter your appearance, your actions speak to me much louder!" Jupiter declared and pointed at her. "You will face justice for hurting so many people!"

"Justice is nothing without power, braggart!" Varan shouted and got into a squatting stance, holding her naginata behind her as tiny purple crystals and frantic lightning swirled around it. They congregated and gradually formed into the outline of a mighty dragon. The voltage surrounding her must have exceeded the lethal amount to kill someone, so if Jupiter and/or Nephrite were to be hit by this dragon, they would be reduced to ashes.

Undeterred, Jupiter crossed her arms in an X form over her chest and extended her index and pinky fingers. A small lightning rod hidden behind the gem of her tiara raised as she called out in a commanding, ethereal voice, "My guardian Jupiter! Brew a storm! Call the clouds! Send down the lightning!"

Raw energy shot down from the skies and reached the lightning rod, surrounding her in electricity just as vicious as Varan's.

"Supreme Thunder…"

"Noble Violet…"

"DRAGON!" both warriors screamed at the same time and sent their monsters to do battle with each other.