Keep Her Safe Chapter Four
LadyPrin
Disclaimer applies.
Something to think about. Is Lita really Lita? Or is she...just an illusion?
Serena managed to find the weavers shop without much trouble, and she found Mina just coming out of the shop. Mina never even knew she had left. Mina had been preoccupied with talking to the women who owned the shop.
"You left without telling me?" Mina cried after Serena had told her what had happened.
Serena shrugged.
"Well, most of the blame goes to me I guess. I normally don't have company along when I visit the village. I forgot you were along. But still next time tell me! You could've been killed!"
After Mina had calmed down, Serena told her about Lita.
Mina stood there in shock.
"I used to know a Lita..." Mina whispered. Afraid to let the hope shine on her face, for fear that this Lita was a false.
"She wants to meet us by the shore." Serena said excitedly.
"By the docks? That's an odd place to meet." Mina thought for a moment. Finally her need to know if her friend was really alive got the best of her.
"Let's go! We don't want to be late! And it looks like it might rain." Mina said worriedly.
Sure enough, dark rain clouds were forming. Coming up on the south side above the ocean.
When they had arrived at the docks, the dark clouds had completely covered the sky, but no rain had come down yet.
They waited there for over ten minutes past the time that Lita said she'd be there. And Mina was getting a bad feeling.
"I think we should go back to the palace." Mina said.
"She said she'd be here. I hope nothing bad has happened to her." Serena said.
'Just like Serena.' Mina thought. 'Never thinking of anything as a trap.'
Then her Sailor Scout instincts kicked in.
And she knew they were being watched.
'We have to get our backs covered.' Mina thought urgently.
"Come on!" She whispered furiously to Serena, while grabbing her arm and pulling her along.
Serena tried to say something, but Mina covered her mouth.
Only then did Serena get the hint.
They hid behind some crates of what smelled horribly of fish, with the wall of a storage shed behind them.
"That covers our backs, now we only have three sides to worry about an attack coming from now." Mina muttered.
"Mina you don't really think that this is a trap do you?" Serena asked.
Mina looked her in the eye.
"Yes, I do. I've been trained for this, Serena. Trust me."
Serena smiled slightly, and pulled her hood up. Mina did the same.
They waited...and waited...and waited...
Finally Serena chanced saying something.
"Shouldn't we try to run for home? I'm getting cramped, and it's getting awfully cold for this time of year."
Mina looked at her.
"I don't feel any cold."
Serena paused in her rubbing her arms in an attempt to bring warmth back into them.
"You don't?" She asked.
Mina shook her head. Then chanced a look up at the sky right above their heads.
Red flaming eyes stared back at her.
Mina gulped, loudly.
The eyes belonged to a horrible looking face. It's skin was grayish/green scales. It had a snout like a pig, just a line for a mouth, and a forked tongue flitting in and out of it. It's body was that of a giant lizard, and it was clinging to the wall of the shed. It had been trying to come upon them from above, something Mina had not expected.
They stared at each other for a minute.
Mina just couldn't seem to look away.
Then the head jerked away and the thing fell to the right of Mina into the crates.
Mina was breathing hard and looked at Serena. She was holding a long piece of wood. She had hit the monster upside the head with it.
"You okay?" Serena asked her.
Mina nodded.
The thing groaned.
Mina grabbed Serena and they ran down the docks toward the palace. Serena still holding the makeshift club.
It was then that the fog rolled in. It dampened their cloaks and made their dresses cling to their bodies.
"What was that thing?" Serena asked breathlessly.
"Yoma, monster, take your pick. They're the same." Mina replied.
Then out of the fog glowed eleven pairs of red eyes.
Mina and Serena stopped. They looked left and right.
On their left was sheds...all locked...to their right, was a ship!
Mina pointed at the ship, and they ran onto it. They layed down on their stomaches below the short wall that made the railing.
They waited.
They heard snorts, and growls, and every now and then, bloodcurdling howls. But they stayed silent and still, and they were not found.
Eventually, the sounds ceased.
Mina chanced a look over the railing.
There didn't seem to be anything moving. And thankfully no glowing red eyes.
"I think we can run for it now." Mina whispered to Serena.
Serena didn't answer.
"Serena?" Mina looked down and Serena wasn't there anymore.
"Serena!" Mina whispered as loud as she dared, looking around the deck.
Then Mina noticed an open hatch a few feet away.
Mina moved slowly to it.
"Serena?" She whispered into it.
"Down here!" Serena whispered back.
Mina slowly descended the stairs, to find Serena motioning for Mina to follow her down the left corridor.
Mina followed.
They came to a door that was locked.
"Listen." Serena whispered.
Mina listened. She could make out sobs coming from the other side of the door. And the clink of chains.
"A slave ship!" Mina whispered. "We're on a slave ship!"
"Isn't slaving illegal?" Serena asked.
"Yes, but just because it's illegal doesn't mean people don't do it." Mina muttered.
"We have to get them out of there!" Serena said urgently.
"Stand back." Mina motioned for Serena to move to the side.
Mina walked back a few feet, then ran at the door and kicked it with her high heeled foot. The door gave a little but held. The sounds on the other side stopped.
"Mina..." Serena tried to tell Mina that trying to kick in a thick wooden door with a high heeled foot, would do killer damage to the foot, but Mina shushed her.
'If I can't kick in this door in high heels, then I don't deserve to be Sailor Venus!' Mina thought.
She ran at the door again with a mighty yell (not too wise), and this time the door gave way.
And Mina went right through it and landed on her back, legs in the air, with a thump.
Serena followed.
"You shouldn't have yelled. Are you okay?" She asked.
"I'm fine." Mina said getting up.
They looked around the room. About ten girls were chained to the walls. They were all staring wide eyed at the new girls.
"Okay, Serena, give me a hairpin." Mina said.
"I have hairpins in my hair?" Serena asked.
Mina looked at her incredulously.
"What do you think your hair is held up with? Air?" Mina asked.
"Well, I've never payed much attention to how you put it up." Serena replied.
"Uhg..."
Mina walked up behind Serena, lowered her hood, and after a bit of searching found a hairpin.
"I really need to teach you to do your own hair." She said going to the first girl and using the hairpin, unchained her.
As she was doing the second girl, Serena searched around in her hair and eventually, after messing her hair up real badly, found another hairpin and doing what she had seen Mina do helped to unchain the rest.
After the girls were all unchained, Serena and Mina led them up to the deck. After checking to see that no one, and nothing, was about, they pointed the girls to the palace.
"Tell them what happened to you, and how you got there, and give them this." Serena gave one of the girls her ring. "Go with the Princess's blessing."
The girls stared wide eyed at her. Then with more urging from Serena and Mina they ran off the boat and were soon gone from sight.
Serena and Mina waited a little while to make sure the coast was clear.
"Let's go." Mina whispered.
They were almost to the bottom of the plank, when they were grabbed by a group of figures that seemed to appear out of thin air.
"Hey, Captain! Look, two more for the market!" One of them said.
"Bring 'em up, chain them, and let's move out!" The Captain yelled back.
They struggled and yelled furiously, but they couldn't escape.
The ship was already underway, when their captors found out that their cargo had ran off.
Serena and Mina escaped a beating, only because they were the only 'cargo' left. Their captors did not wish to damage the goods they had.
They were chained up, and the boat continued on it's way.
It's destination?
Japan.
Unknown to almost everyone, a lone figure stood on the pier they had just launched from. Her oak brown hair flowing in the wind, her green eyes staring at the ship as it disappeared.
The man on duty in the mast saw the shadow of the women as it disappeared. She gave him an unsettling feeling. But he soon forgot about her.