TWO
We walk through what could almost be a maze of side streets, beyond the cafe we just went to, and down. Here it becomes noticeable that things are very wrong, in the 'World Bazaar' area everyone seems to be fine. Happy, sparkling even. The shops and show cases are covered by a protective glass ceiling, and the snow is piling on top thick and heavy, towards the edge of the glass, the snow is blowing in to the streets, and it's almost as though a switch turns the people's mood as soon as they approach.
"Not paranoid," Makoto says, "but what could be doing this?"
Boldly we walk out of the glass. The fairy tale castle is just visible through the hazy sky, but quite a walk away. We have to cross a walkway, surrounded by water features, to get there, but the central point will give us a good vantage to the rest of the park, especially if we can get into the castle itself.
We begin our walk across the sidewalk well enough, but soon the wind is whipping the snow into a frenzy, and our movement has slowed to a crawl. We've barely made it halfway around the circle, when we relent, and peel off down one of the sidestreets, and into a store which seems to be part of 'Adventureland', given Usagi finds herself momentarily scared by a Polynesian style face which is part of the decor.
"I've never seen it like this," the attendant remarks, as we shiver and slap snow of ourselves and each other.
"We may as well draw attention to ourselves..." Minako remarks. She turns to the attendant, "Our map is completely soggy. Do you have a public bathroom nearby?"
We briefly walk outside again, and across to a bathroom. We take our time, waiting until a lady changing her son's diaper has left, and then Makoto closes the door, and holds it while Minako and I call our henshin. It's bitter, the whole air is bitter, it pricks at me until I focus up on my own power inside, and push it out. When I open my eyes again, Jupiter has joined us, Venus and Moon are looking at me with concern.
"This snow...is not right," I manage, "It's poison."
"We need Rei-chan..." Moon repeats.
I nod, "Fire against Ice. There's a good possibility anything I try to do to whatever is causing this, is just going to make it stronger."
It doesn't take long for Rei to answer the phone, "I've been sneezing all morning guys!" she chides, first off and then, "What's going on? For the past hour I've felt like I'm freezing, but things are fine up here."
"It's snowing," Moon says.
"Snowing?" Rei repeats, "I take it it's not some kind of Disney theme event."
"No," Venus says, "We could really use you here..."
There is a sound from outside which sounds like someone hastily wrapping a walking stick against the door, "Girls, I really think you need to get out here!" Mamoru's voice sounds strained.
"That's only going to happen if you know how to teleport..." Rei points out.
"Henshin and call us back," Venus says.
"We know how to teleport?" Moon asks, sounding as though she's not even quite sure what the word means.
"I did manage to hold open the portal to get you, Mars, and all the girls away from that youma," I point out, "and we, four, less Venus got you and I out of the Dark Kingdom realm after I..." I trail off, "So, in theory we could at least open a portal for Mars to come through."
Moon's phone chimes.
"Okay. I'm ready." Mars says, once the phone is answered. She hangs up as instructed a moment later, and Venus pulls out a small compact and opens it. Through it we can see Mars, standing in the center of one of the rooms at the Hikawa Shrine. She has her hands clasped together in focused concentration. The four of us together join our hands in a circle, as we watch her in the mirror, her aura sparks into visible light, fiery and resplendent, like a phoenix.
In turn each of us closes our eyes, hands gripped tightly power surging towards the middle of the circle. Suddenly I feel the pull, and instinctively withdraw my hands from the circle and move them instead towards the circle center. Weight drops onto my arms and the arms of the others, as I open my eyes, and find we're holding Mars above the ground.
We step to one side still holding her. Venus lets go first, so that she can retrieve her compact, which has dulled again, and the rest of us lower Mars to her feet.
She brushes herself off, "I think I'd prefer the train in the future," she says.
The rapping of Kamen's cane comes again, and we rush to the door. Mars opens it first and we see what's going on. At first the sight is
confusing, it looks as though snow banks are moving, but then as our eyes become focused once more on looking through the snowy haze, I realize it's the people, the patrons and workers of the park. The snow has crusted to them, and they're moving in packs, chasing down others who are not as covered and dragging them out into the snow. "We can't go after them they're people..." Moon murmurs.
"You could try healing them," Jupiter suggests.
"But it might be futile..." Mars counters, "Unless we find what's causing this. Mercury, work with me?"
"Hm?" I ask.
"Snow is more your tune, if I channel energy through you the two of us should be able to narrow down where this is coming from."
I'm not sure how to do what she suggests, so I look at her a bit blankly.
She laughs, "Trust me it's okay. Really all you have to do is focus on the worst nastiest feeling snow, and I'll hold your hand like this and focus on the strongest power," she pauses, "strongest evil power, no point blinding myself with Moon here."
"We can keep the others at bay," Venus says, "Carefully," she adds looking at Jupiter.
"They're people I know," Jupiter jokes, "No kicking them unless they kick first."
I always have that moment of not feeling confident at all about this sort of thing, and chew on my lip a little before Mars takes my hand and waggles it, "You'll be fine," she says with a smile, "Trust yourself. You tracked Usagi-chan across Tokyo this thing should be a breeze."
"Thank you," I say, softly, and take a deep breath before closing my eyes. For a moment the feeling of crawling bugs is overwhelming. I briefly slip back mentally to the time of Dark Mercury and almost panic, but pull things together. I breath in again, push past the compulsion to start slapping at myself to get the snow away from me, and breath out, breathe in. Yes. The snow is nasty, it's evil, but some of it is worse, where's the worst?
I feel Mars beside me. I can almost hear her, saying the same thing, where's the worst? Where's the worst?
I feel myself being pulled, as though someone has a hold of the bow on the back of my fuku and is dragging me, up and up into the air, and I'm hanging.
If I opened my eyes where would I be?
The tallest ride in Adventureland.
I open my eyes. I'm standing next to Mars, surrounded by the other senshi and Tuxedo Kamen who are fending back the yeti-patrons.
"Adventureland," Mars says.
I nod. Well, at least if we're both wrong, we're both wrong together.
"You have something?" Jupiter asks, sounding hopeful.
"Which way?" Mars asks.
I turn around in a circle for a moment, gauging, the castle is over there, Tomorrowland is over there, "Over this way…" we take the tops of the buildings, to avoid the snow men. They streak towards us anyway, trying to climb. In some areas the snow is drifting so high against the buildings they can walk up to meet us, and we have to fight them off.
This is the hardest part. In many cases you can still see the people beneath the snow, and you don't want to hurt them, but they do not show us the same courtesy. We almost lose Moon at one point, because several of them grab her and try to drag her from the roof top into them and casual punching of arms does no good even when Jupiter does it. In the end Venus whips them with her wink-chain enough for Moon to get an arm free enough to zap them with her own power, partially healed and confused they release her and Kamen is able to pull her back up.
We take pre-emptive from that point, zapping around us as we run in the hopes they won't climb up after us.
We're almost at our destination and trying to look around for signs of the person or creature who is causing this, but the air is so much thicker with snow that it's almost impossible to see. We hesitate at the last rooftop, wondering if we should take the plunge, when the blizzard reaches out and grabs us.