Cyber Moon: Genesis.
Episode 3: Serene Fury.
By Razor Knight
Last update: October 6, 2005
To say the practice area of the base was huge, was a big understatement. The room was so large she could barely see those training in the other side of it. However, the ones she could see were locked in several one-on-one sparring battles.
The two fighting nearest to the entrance, were using swords, swords similar to the one she had. One of them was tall, with short grey hair and dark green eyes, and her suit was a bright shade of green. The other was short, with short black hair and light green eyes, and her suit was black.
"Those are Maria from Neptune and Shade from Nemesis. They're the last ones to join our rebellion, not counting you, and also, the ones that learnt faster than anyone else how to use their magic," Serenity explained. The red-haired one that'd walked along with them from the main hall, Pyrie, as she'd introduced herself, snorted at that. For some reason Lumina felt like she was even harder to befriend than Aejin.
"Neptune Torrent!" Maria shouted out as she leapt over Shade's head. WAY over her head, the blonde noticed. No wonder the hall was almost as tall as it was large. A column of water shot down from Maria's hands... No, from her body, as Shade looked up calmly.
"Nemesis Black Aura." In a blink, a black dome surrounded the Nemesian, deflecting Maria's attack. Shade grinned as she saw Maria was still airborne, and reached both hands out. "Nemesis Dark Shot!" A blast of darkness shot out from her hands and hit Maria square in the chest, sending her rolling back.
"Are they trying to kill each other?" the blonde asked.
Serenity smiled. "No. See, the suits we have protect us from magic, as well as from the energy weapons of the Masters. Our attacks can't really hurt us while training."
"Not a lot, anyways," Pyrie said with a frown. Lumina noticed she was looking at her left hand, which had a slight scar running from the top to the bottom. "Cognisance's Ice Spike," she added as she noticed Lumina staring at the scar.
"I see..."
"Okay ladies, stop your sparring and come meet our newest member," Serenity said. Her voice was as gentle and calm as always, yet it somehow carried along the room. A magic trick, perhaps?
One word from that statement brought a lot more questions to her mind... Ladies. She hadn't noticed it at first, but all the mages in the room were female. Was it just a coincidence?
"This is Lumina, from Venus," Serenity said once the others had gathered. Some of them looked at the newcomer with friendly smiles, others didn't seem too welcoming... And some didn't show any emotion at all.
"Welcome," said Maria, the one from Neptune. She didn't look like she'd damaged anything but her pride when she got hit by Shade's blast.
One by one, the others introduced themselves. Claude from Jupiter, the tallest of them all, had green hair tied in a ponytail, and her eyes matched her eye color. Cerra, from Earth, had long, dark grey hair and matching eyes. Brisa, from Uranus, had short red hair and dark red eyes. Chrome, from Pluto, was almost as cold-looking as Aejin, her hair an almost white shade of green, and her eyes purple. Mana from Lilith, with long blue hair and blue eyes, looked almost like Cognisance's twin. And finally, Aurora from the Sun, her hair was a strange gold-like shade of blonde, and her eyes matched it.
Once the introductions were done, Lumina looked at Serenity and frowned. "Cognisance told me you would be able to answer my questions... And I didn't have time to ask them all yet."
"I could tell you how we gathered. That would surely answer most of your questions..."
"And it's a fun tale to listen to," Pyrie added with dripping sarcasm.
"Resume your training while I tell Lumina how our group formed," Serenity said. It was just a sugestion, but the others apparently took it as an order, as they all went back to their practice battles.
Lumina stood there, waiting for Serenity to start. Serenity took a seat in a nearby bench, and pointed Lumina to a bench facing it. Lumina nodded and sat down, and the mage from the Moon started her story...
Serenity had been a slave for as long as she remembered. Humans were born that way, and she couldn't see a way to possibly change that. She didn't like it, it went against her nature to work for that race, the Masters. However, she'd seen others try to rebel against them, and fail.
Nowadays, Serenity downright hated the Masters. She had for a whole month. She'd seen her sister, Adeil, die in front of her eyes. Adeil was, much like her, not content with being a slave, and one of the guards had been about to whip an old man near the spot they were digging at... Adeil had used her plasma drill to drill a hole through the guard's head. Next thing Serenity knew, her sister had been shot by several other guards.
'And no matter how hard I try, I can't stand being a slave. But I don't want to end up like Adeil did.'
She had been assigned to a new tunnel that week. It was amazing how fast their plasma drills and other tools could dig through rock, but what was the purpose of doing so? Why were the Masters so intent on gathering resources, be it water, minerals or food? Was that just for their cities?
Her thoughts were interrupted as she heard a weird noise. She didn't realize what it was at first, but then she saw the massive drill she was using shooting sparks from all sides. Instinctively, Serenity leapt away from it, and watched the tool explode.
'Damn great. I'm surely going to get a whipping for this,' the blonde thought with a frown. 'But... What could be strong enough to case the drill to blow up like that?'
"What was that noise? You, human, how did that happen?"
Serenity looked up at the guard and froze. This didn't look good. At all. "It... It hit something, I don't know what, and just exploded," she tried explaining.
"Lies," the guard said. "There's nothing those drills can't cut through."
"Well, I just found some--"
The guard slapped her, knocking her to the ground. She knew why, talking up to a guard wasn't allowed. But... The pain she felt from the slap was blocked by something else. A feeling there was something near that could help her out of this situation. And maybe...
"Stupid rebellious human. I remember your sister, what a brat. Guess you're as tired of living as she was," the guard said with a condescending smile.
"Don't dare insulting..." Serenity said as she reached her hand to the hole the drill had been digging "my sister!" as the last word escaped her mouth, something flew off the hole and right to her hand. A sword. A metal-bladed sword.
"Huh? What's that?" the guard asked surprised. "Drop that thing, girl, or your punishment will surely be death."
It looked like a minute to her, but it only took a fraction of a second for her to feel the power in the sword, to hear the words in her mind, and to voice them out.
"Moonlight Beam."
Serenity blinked. After she said those words, her free hand had lit up, then a beam had blasted through the guard's chest, and the creature fell backwards, dead. The beam had worked it's way several meters into the rock wall, too, before it faded out. She stood up and looked around, worriedly. All that noise and light would surely attract more guards in.
But that was just one of the things in her mind. She examined the sword. The blade was of a strange, mirror-like metal, and the hilt was made out of a white mineral. Too advanced to be from her race, too primitive to be a creation of the Masters. But whatever it was, she felt like it'd given her the power to achieve her goal. Freedom.
It didn't take more than one minute before the other guards appeared. Twenty guards, half the mine's squad, were there aiming their plasma shooters at her. "Drop that weapon, human, and we'll spare your life," one of them said.
Serenity wasn't in the mood to argue. Or to give up. Instead, she rose the sword and closed her eyes. She could hear the guards gasping at her actions. "What is she doing?" another guard asked.
"I don't know, but... What is that around her? Shoot her before--"
The guard never got to complete his order. "Moonlight Screen!" She heard a ripping noise, and the screams of the guards. When she opened her eyes, she saw there were no guards around... Only some charred and molten fragments of their guns remained.
Whatever this power she had now was, it was both exciting and frightening. And it'd taken the Masters by surprise. Serenity sensed movement behind her and turned around, her mind ready to call upon her power again. However, she relaxed when she saw Arthun, one of the mine's elder workers, was there along with a small group of miners.
"Child, I don't know how you did what you did, but... It was amazing, " the man said, a hand on his chin.
Serenity nodded. "I... I know. I don't know where my power comes from, but this... This sword seems to be the key to it," she said and showed it to the man.
Arthun reached for the sword and jerked his hand back a second later, as if something invisible had slapped it away. "That hurts. "
"What happened?" The blonde woman asked.
"The sword... It hit my hand with some invisible force as I tried to touch her," Arthus said.
"Strange, it does nothing to me," Serenity said. Well, not counting her newfound ability to vaporize a crowd in a split second.
"Maybe," someone else said, "it can only used by her." Serenity turned to the man. Taller and younger than Arthus, he looked like he could've beaten one of the Masters barehanded, a task seemingly impossible for a human.
"That would explain why it reacts to my thoughts," she admitted.
"Thoughts? What do you mean?" Arthus asked.
"I can't explain it... But when the first guard attacked me, I was trying to find a way out of it, and the sword fled out from the hole it was in."
"Swords don't..." The man, Alathar said.
"I saw it happen, I was working fifty meters away from her," another, younger man said.
"The guards, they're all heading this way!" A girl shorter than Serenity and also younger said running towards them. A couple seconds later, they could hear the voices of the guards and their footsteps approaching from a side corridor.
"Everyone, stay behind me," Serenity said.
"One girl against all those guards? That's foolish. Luck won't shine on you trice," Alathar said skeptically.
"If you're not willing to fight them, I am. It's not foolishness. I'm tired of being a slave, and this sword's giving me the only chance I may ever have to fight the Masters."
"But our Masters will chase us..." an elderly woman said.
"Hoomahns, get back to your assigned spots immediately," the Tharlor ordered.
'Now,' Serenity thought, her mind racing to plan on her next move. "Moonlight Screen!" Her attack took the guards completely by surprise, but the Tharlor, a warrior trained for real combat unlike his underlings, dodged the massive disc-shaped energy wall that shot out from the blonde's body.
"What was that?" The Tharlor said, hiding his cofusion with a glare of defiance at Serenity. "This is your last chance, hoomahns..."
"Look around you, Tharlor," Alathar said. "This woman just eliminated all of your soldiers, and you're telling her to surrender?"
"I'd say this is your last chance to surrender," Serenity said to the overseer. "I see no use in killing for the sake of killing, but if I'm forced to, I'll do it again."
The Tharlor looked around and paled. True, whatever that hoomahn had used on his soldiers, was frightening. But surrendering to them wasn't an option. If he fought, he was dead, if he didn't, he was dead. As things were, there was nothing to lose by trying.
"DIE!"
"Moonlight Beam." Serenity's energy beam punched a hole through the Tharlor's armor and chest, drilling a head-sized hole in the wall behind him. As the alien's lifeless form fell to the ground, Serenity turned to the others. "Anyone here knows how to use a computer?"
"I do," one of the women said. "Why?"
"We need to see if they alerted the Moon's capital about this. If they did, we need to find somewhere to hide."
"And what happened next?" Lumina asked after Serenity fell silent.
"We found that, somehow, no computer system was working. Arthus figured my magic was responsible for it. We escaped the mine and after a bit of searching, found this abandoned base."
"When does Cognisance come into the picture?"
"She escaped from a factory in Mercury, and she figured a way to... Teleport."
"Like the Masters do?"
"Much like that, but using magic instead. We don't need teleportation platforms to go from one planet to the next, and that's a good tactical advantage."
"So... What are the plans from now on?"
"First," Serenity said, "you need to train... We all need to train. Our powers grown stronger with every single day that passes, but if we wait too long, the Masters might find a way to fight back our magic."
"Are you planning on freeing every planet one by one?" Lumina asked, trying to guess what agenda her 'leader' had.
"No, we wouldn't be able to hold them back once we free a planet. There's not many magicians, and not enough soldiers in our side.
"So the wisest thing to do," Cognisance said walking to them, "is to cut them from the root. The massive mother ship of the Masters, the place where the Khrall passes most of his time, is on the Moon. We're going to launch a full frontal assault on that ship and destroy it, along with anyone inside it."
"But... Attacking the mother ship would be suicidal," Lumina said.
"We're well aware of that. But it's the best plan we could come up with. Are you still willing to fight on our side, Lumina?"
"Of course I am," Lumina said. "It may be the only chance I'll have in my lifetime to do something other than mining."
"That's good to hear, Lumina of Venus," Cognisance said. "Now come with me, you need a crash course on combat."
A/N: Since someone finally noticed... Yes, the alien race has a name other than "Masters," but I just love to keep the suspense.
I blame this episode's title on "Riviera: The Promised Land" for GameBoy Advance.
Disclaimer: Sailor Moon is a creation of Naoko Takeuchi, and I thank her for creating such wonderful universe.