Chapter 9

"Mars! Please don't kill my baby's father!"

That last desperate plea from Sailor Jupiter finally broke through Sailor Mars' intense level of mental concentration. Her tightly closed eyes flicked open and a loud audible 'gasp' blew from her pursued lips as her breathing abruptly sped up for a few seconds before returning to its usual rhythmic pattern. With a second or two, the loss of her focus caused the thick stream of fire from the ends of her index fingers to abruptly stop.. Her hands remained tightly clasped together as she began to finally feel the physical tolls that her attack had put on her body.

She abruptly dropped down to one knee and placed her left hand flat on the ground to halt her fall and act as a support for the rest of her body. Her face was cast downward at the brown cobblestone street underneath her. Her long raven black hair hung off her shoulders and obscured most of her face. After a few seconds she lifted her head and looked over towards where Carnage had just been standing.

The blinding orangey-red glare of the flames had quickly disappeared with the intense heat when she had suddenly stopped the flow of planetary power that had been continuously feeding her attack. Also, the forward momentum of the fire blast that had been keeping Carnage pressed firmly against the wall had also quickly dissipated. This had caused him to fall forwards as his body over compensated in its attempts to remain standing. His body went limp and twisted to the right as he descended so that he landed on his right shoulder with a hard bounce before rolling onto his back. His red symbiotic costume was almost completely gone except for a few burnt pieces of organic material that were left on his body and a few puddles of bubbling crimson liquid on the ground around him.

With his living costume mostly gone all that remained was the human body of Sean. He as lying semi-nude on the ground as most of his civilian clothing had been incinerated during Sailor Mars' attack. He was unconscious and with the deathly quiet atmosphere that now filled the area small murmurs of sound could be heard coming from his mouth as his body continued to take in air. He was in very bad shape and it was nothing short of both amazing and horrible to the Sailors that he was still alive after enduring such a violent looking assault for as long as it had occurred. His human skin was severely burned in several spots and was now blistering in some areas. Some of his sandy blonde hair had been burned away and had left scalded patches along his scalp in their place. Around them, the smell of burning meat filled the air which made some of the Sailors visibly nauseous.

Across the entire battlefield time seemed to have come to a screeching halt as everyone became frozen in place upon the reveal of Sailor Jupiter's unexpected confession. All of the Sailors wore the exact same facial expression as they all stared directly at their team mate and friend who still remained down on her knees. In each of their eyes, she could see that they were clearly demanding to know whether what she had just said was indeed true or just a last ditch attempt to save the man that she loved.

Sailor Jupiter maintained her fixated stare at Sailor Mars and did not break it to look at her other friends. She could feel their gazes on her though and knew that they all had been caught completely by surprise by her sudden admission. Her bright green eyes were still opened wide and stained red from the irritation caused by the acid in the tears that continued to pour down her cheeks. Her breathing was very erratic as her breaths came in rapid and short bursts. Her body was also in very rough shape physically just like Carnage's. The severe injuries to her forearms and legs were still in the process of clotting as the blood continued to flow and run down the length of her limbs and stain her white gloves and boots. She was clearly suffering from physical exhaustion as a result of the blood loss because she was having a hard time keeping her body upright and the colour of her skin was noticeably fading. Her eyes were full of remorse and regret which confirmed to anyone that could see them that what she had just confessed was indeed true. It had certainly not been the way that she had wanted to tell her friends the wonderful news but she had been forced to make a choice. It was a desperate one by any standard but one that she didn't regret.

"Jupiter, you are pregnant?"

Sailor Mercury broke her temporary state of paralysis and moved to a position beside her friend. She knelt down so that she was at the same level as her. Her expression changed to one of deep concern as she looked more closely at her friend's various wounds. She lifted Jupiter's left arm very gently and visually inspected it with her trained medical eyes. Her mouth tightened into a thin line as the severity of the wounds became abundantly clear upon closer inspection.

"Mercury, my leg, I can't feel my leg,"

Sailor Mercury looked up and quickly turned her head towards where Sailor Venus was. In all of the unexpected surprises and confusion of the last few minutes everyone had almost forgotten about Sailor Venus who was still down on the ground on her back and writhing around on the cobblestone street. Sailor Mercury rushed over to her side with Sailor Saturn joining her a second later. Sailor Uranus and Mars in turn moved to where Sailor Jupiter was and took over the tasks of monitoring and comforting her.

Sailor Mercury examined the red and black spearhead still deeply imbedded in Venus' left thigh. She could see that the bleeding from the wound had begun to slow down as it clotted around the foreign object but there was enough blood on the ground around Sailor Venus to tell her what was more than likely going on. Her skin colour was beginning to fade and the rapid onset of numbness in her lower limbs only confirmed her suspicions. She lifted her head and called over to Sailor Mars and Uranus.

"Venus has lost too much blood. She is going into shock just like Jupiter will be shortly. We need to get them both back to the hospital now or they won't make it!"

"You mean Venus will lose her leg?"

"That is the least of our worries. They will both die if we don't get them to the hospital and stabilize them."

"Mercury! The lance, something is happening!"

Sailor Mercury quickly turned back around to look at the symbiotic spearhead. Sailor Saturn was indeed correct in that the blood-red organic object was slowly turning a light pink. On top of that it was also becoming noticeably brittle as small cracks were forming along the outer edges of it. Her brow furrowed and she bit her lower lip as she quickly began to realize what was happening.

Just like earlier that day when Carnage had injured Jupiter with the dart to her shoulder the symbiotic tissue was quickly losing its molecular stability and was now in the process of crumbling to dust after being separated from the main body for too long. If it was in her nature to swear she would have at this particular moment.

"We have to move them now!"

She pulled out her communicator and sent a "Code White" message to her medical team back at the Crystal Tokyo hospital. Like the hospitals and medical centres of old she and her team had designed a series of colour codes or signals to let everyone around them know instantly exactly what to do when time was of the utmost essence. A 'code white' was the highest and more critical scenario and indicated that multiple patients were coming in at the same time and that they had minutes or seconds before each of them flat-lined. This meant that their vital signs would crash and they would die if nothing was done. She had never had to use this code before so she hoped that her staff would remember their medical training and have everything they needed ready upon their arrival. There wouldn't have any time to spare if they weren't fully prepared.

"Saturn, grab a piece of that awning over there. Rip it into a thick strip and bring it over here!"

Sailor Saturn jumped up from her kneeling position and hurried over to the damaged awning that Sailor Mercury had indicated. She did as she had been instructed and ripped a long thick strip from it and brought it back to the spot where Mercury was in the process of helping Venus get up to a sitting position. She saw her young friend's return out of the side of her eye. She didn't turn her head to look at her but gave the next set of instructions when she had knelt back down.

"Tie that around her leg at the spot just below the wound. Do not tie it too tight! Keep it just tight enough that it won't slip down her leg or fall off during transport."

Sailor Saturn nodded her head and quickly did what she had been asked. She tied the piece of sturdy fabric around Venus' leg just above her left knee. Upon seeing that task completed Sailor Mercury turned her head and attention back to Sailors Uranus and Mars who still over tending to Sailor Jupiter a short distance away. They were both helping her up to her feet but Mercury could tell that the sudden pressure change from sitting to standing was making the effects of her blood loss even worse. Jupiter was going to pass out long before they got to the hospital and she was going to need a lot of assistance to get her there in the time that they needed to stabilize her.

"Uranus, Mars, get her to the hospital now!"

"What about you? You and Saturn can't get move Venus all by yourself!"

"And what about him?"

Sailor Mercury followed Sailor Uranus' extended finger. She already knew exactly who she was referring too. Her eyes fell once again upon the still semi-conscious body of Sean who was still on his back and appeared to still be extremely slow in recovering from Sailor Mars' brutal attack. She understood the reason for Sailor Uranus' question. They had finally managed to get Carnage weak enough that they could get him before Neo-Queen Serenity so she could "re-curse" him. However they were now two Sailors down and needed everybody left to get them back to the hospital quickly or they would both die.

The problem before them now was that there was a very strong possibility that Carnage would physically recover before they could get back here to transport him to the Crystal Palace. They couldn't leave him unguarded while he was still extremely dangerous and any innocent person that died as a result of him would be on their 'hands'. Sailor Mercury's mind raced as she tried to figure out some way that they could both get their friends immediate medical attention and put an end to Carnage's threat to Crystal Tokyo.

"Mercury! The spearhead, it's crumbling away!"

Sailor Mercury really wished she could swear now. Up until now the spearhead had been acting like a plug or a cork in a bottle. With it now almost completely gone the wound would almost certainly open up again and the bleeding would resume. Judging from the spot where the organic weapon had impacted it more than likely had severed Venus' left femoral artery. If that turned out to be the case then she would bleed out and die in less than three minutes if they couldn't control the bleeding and steady her vital signs. She looked at Sailor Saturn and began to speak fast.

"Tie that fabric as tight as you can over the wound now!"

"Mercury! What about we supposed to do?"

"Go, get Jupiter to the hospital! We will be right behind you!"

"What about Carnage?"

"Go, I will worry about him!"

"We can't just leave you alone with him. If he wakes up,"

"Mars, shut up and get moving!"

The sudden and uncharacteristic response from Sailor Mercury caught everyone completely by surprise. It only served to emphasize the level of seriousness of the current situation to everyone. The longer they all stood around debating what on what to do the closer their friends were getting to death. Sailor Mars hated to admit it but Mercury was right and she absolutely loathed the position that they were in.

She shook her head and refocused her mind on what she needed to do. She put Jupiter's left arm over her neck and lowered her body so that she did not have to lift Jupiter's still injured left shoulder any higher than was necessary as Sailor Uranus did the same thing with her right arm. A second later they crisscrossed their 'free' arms behind Jupiter's thighs and lowered her body down onto them. They then lifted her up into a 'chair-like'-style carry and held her up using their augmented physical strength. Once she was securely in place they leapt upwards together to the closest rooftop and began their rapid sprint towards Crystal Tokyo Hospital.

"Ok, place her hand on your opposite shoulder. Take as much of her weight as you can but make sure you are still stable."

Sailor Saturn nodded her head and put her bladed staff down on the ground. She took Venus' arm and did as she had been instructed. She slowly stood up and felt the dead weight of her friend pressing down on her as she got her knee high white boots underneath her again. Sailor Mercury mirrored her actions on the opposite side. As they stood up she reached down and picked up her staff with her free hand to give them additional support. Despite the staff's assistance, the size difference between her and Sailor Venus was causing the injured blonde warrior to become lopsided as her body struggled to remain upright. In response Sailor Saturn put her long staffed Silence Glaive in between them to act like a makeshift support post. Once the thin metal rod of the pole was firmly planted into the ground and appeared to be serving its purpose Sailor Saturn tilted her head forward to look passed Sailor Venus's body towards Sailor Mercury. She waited quietly for a few seconds for her friend to give the next series of directions.

"Hey Sailor cuties! You better check the stove! I smell something burning, Ha!"

"Oh no."

Sailors Saturn, Venus and Mercury all turned their heads in unison. They were all afraid of what they were going to see and their bodies each felt a wave of numbness. When their eyes came to the spot where the voice had come from they all felt their bodies physically shiver and the blood in their veins suddenly became frozen.

Sean was standing upright and appeared like nothing a normal person would come to expect from a person who had just survived being almost burned alive. His skin was still charred and black in several places but Sailor Mercury could tell that his body was in the process of rapidly healing as those damaged patches were visibly getting smaller. He looked like he wasn't having any problem physically standing up despite the inhuman attack and the resulting near-death condition afterwards that he had been left in only minutes earlier. He was looking at them with a half-amused smirk and his top row of teeth looked impossibly white in the late afternoon sunlight. His blue eyes were bright and wild with the glint of insanity that continued to consume the body behind them.

As they continued to stare at him he reached across his body and scratched his right arm like he was picking at an insect bite. He then raised his hand and using the nail on the little finger on his left hand he scraped a small line along his left cheek. A black and red flow like blood ran from the scratches on his arm and face and quickly clung to his legs, arms and his torso. It flowed like a live animal over his skin. It covered his hands in razor-sharp claws and feet in pointed talons like an eagle. It moved upwards and covered his head by expanding and slanting his eyes into large white swirling pools. His mouth grew and sprouted numerous pointed razor-sharp teeth. His body frame itself also grew and became more muscular and wide. His red outer skin flowed and constantly formed and changed into knives, spears and other items of destruction along its surface. Red salvia drooled excessively from his mouth as it dripped off the black teeth.

"You can kill it and kill it but baby; it is just not going to die! The symbiote is in my very bloodstream and you know what that means, CARNAGE NEVER DIES!"

"Go. Gget her to the hospital,"

"What? No Mercury, you can't,"

"Just go Saturn! I will buy you the time you need to get away!"

"Mercury,"

"You two go! I will keep our enemy busy while you escape."

Sailor Mercury and Saturn couldn't resist the reflex of turning their heads to see the newest person to make the scene. Even before they saw her they recognized her voice and they both became relieved and concerned at the same time.

Sailor Neptune stood a few feet away from them in her traditional battle pose which consisted of her standing tall with her body facing to the side. One of her hands cupped her chin and her upper body was twisted towards the object of her attention. Sailor Mercury could tell from her posture that she was still favouring her right ribcage which was a sign that she still hadn't fully recovered from her injury earlier that day. It was clear that she was doing her best to not make that fact publicly known especially to the newly regenerated Carnage.

"Deep Submerge!"

Sailor Neptune lifted her hands up over her head. She collected the water energy around her and formed a bright blue energy sphere from the harvested hydro particles. She threw the radiant orb directly at Carnage who was just starting a forward charge at where Mercury and Saturn were holding Venus. Her energy blast sailed through the air at breakneck speed and squarely hit him. The attack's impact force sent him hurdling backwards and right through a wall of a small clothing store where he disappeared from view as he landed somewhere inside its interior. With the temporary reprieve from danger Sailor Neptune turned to formally address Sailor Mercury and Saturn.

"Go and help Venus! I will give you the time you need."

Sailor Mercury wanted to protest and stay with Neptune but she could tell from the fierce look on their saviour's face that any further discussion would only antagonize her. She simply nodded her head before leaping up with Sailor Saturn to the nearest rooftop just as Mars and Uranus had done a couple of minutes earlier and began their journey towards the hospital.

Down on the street Sailor Neptune watched them go until they were out of sight. She lowered her eyes and looked back towards the hole where Carnage had disappeared through. She began to hear some rustling and other sounds of movement coming from somewhere within and lowered her body into a perfectly balanced battle stance in anticipation for her enemy's imminent re-emergence. She didn't have to wait long as she first saw the ends of some jagged-tipped tendrils appear which were followed by the rest of the snarling and drooling beast that had claimed so many lives in such a short period of time.

"You spoiled my dramatic moment! I wasn't done with them yet!"

"You will find that I am more than match for you the second time around. You will not catch me by surprise this time!"

Carnage snorted in response to her bold statement. He then threw a dozen tendrils out towards her. Some of them were equipped with razor-sharp arrowheads while others had tear drop barb-heads that were designed to ensnare and bind her limbs to her sides as a means of immobilizing her. Rather than purely evading the incoming barrage of organic vines Sailor Neptune chose instead to charge forward and head directly at the source of the incoming onslaught.

Using her enhanced agility and natural grace she weaved around, ducked under and rolled forward to avoid the attacking pseudopods. Her speed never slowed down for a second during her rapid advance as she continued to close the distance between them. When she got within striking distance she drove her right knee upwards and aimed for Carnage's solar plexus. She was successful in that task as the blunt knob of her knee connected perfectly with the spongy muscle mass underneath his living alien skin. This physical strike caused him to tilt forward and let a "woof" escape his huge mouth as red spittle flew from it.

Sailor Neptune didn't hesitate for an instant. As soon as the heels of her white boots touched the ground from her knee drive she bent down into a squat position and pushed upwards with her muscular thighs. As she ascended up she drove her right fist up into the underside of Carnage's chin and executed a perfect uppercut punch. Her blow's upwards momentum caused his head to snap backwards and lift his body off his feet. He fell backwards with a sickening thud onto the hard cobblestone street as the back of his head bounced once against the ground. This stunned him for a second or two which was all Sailor Neptune needed.

She quickly took a position beside Carnage's head. Recalling her many years of gymnastics from when she was a small child she performed a standing forward tuck jump. As she felt her legs pass the half point of her spin she fully extended one of them until she felt her knee lock. Tensing the muscles in her thigh she brought the extended leg down across Carnage's throat with the back of her knee landing where his Adam's apple would be under the red alien skin. If Carnage had been a normal human being a hit like that would have surely crushed his larynx. In that case, the end result of that would have quite possibly caused him to suffocate to death as he wouldn't be able to get any oxygen to his lungs.

Sailor Neptune landed on her butt but the adrenaline coursing through her body made her not feel the impact of the hard ground at all. She quickly got back to her feet and drove one of her knee high white boots into his chest at the spot where his heart would be. With her augmented muscular strength, the force of the stomp jerked Carnage's head and shoulders upwards and off the ground for a second before falling back with a thump.

She lifted her foot to do it again when suddenly three strands of symbiotic material shot out from Carnage's chest and wrapped tightly around her ankle. Thus halted any downward movement she was about to make and put the rest of her body in a state of imbalance.

"Uh Uh Uh, that's enough of that!"

The strands holding her foot first merged together to form one single thick tendril before extending outwards and cause her to completely lose her balance off of her other foot. As Carnage got up into a standing position once again the tendril continued to extend out until Sailor Neptune was fully suspended in the air. To add another complication to her current situation Carnage rotated the tendril so that she was now upside down. This gave her the appearance that she had been caught in one of those rope traps that many survivalists had used when in the forest or jungle. The red organic vine that held her moved from its original sprouting spot in the center of his chest to the middle of his back. It looped up over his head like a scorpion's tail and held her body so that her head was level with his. Carnage then leaned in so that her face was very close to his sharp razor teeth.

Up close Carnage's breath smelled like a body left out to rot in the sun and it took everything inside Sailor Neptune to resist the urge to vomit. Her blue-green eyes were fixated on the constantly moving material that made up the sharp needle-like teeth. He moved his face even closer to hers until his upper row of teeth almost touched the end of her nose. In such close proximity, the smell of his rancid breath almost caused Neptune to pass out but she still somehow managed to hold on.

"I am going to relish chopping you to pieces. But fear not, I will make sure that Uranus gets your heart more or less intact! Ha Ha Ha!"

She watched as the skin on his shoulders, chest and arms abruptly became a furry of movement and acted noticeably different than how his living skin normally behaved. Knives, spears, barbed hooks and needles formed and then quickly melted back into the red and black alien tissue. He looked like a living breathing armory that was capable of producing a seemingly infinite number of weapons of various shapes and sizes to fulfill his vow to dismember her. She quickly analyzed her current situation for the tenth time as she attempted to figure out some way for her break free before it was too late.

She had no leverage in her body's current upside down position to break the tendril holding her up by the ankle. In addition to that was the reality that her body's response time was significantly slower in this position which meant that Carnage could easily avoid any clumsily thrown punch that she attempted to use in order to get him to drop her. She was also certain that she wouldn't be able to get off either of her 'Deep Submerge' or 'Submarine Reflection' attacks before he impaled or stab her with one of the weapons he could instantly create from his costume. His intimate knowledge the Sailor team from his many years of working alongside them as a team member would allow him to recognize the body movements of each of their attacks. He would kill her the second he saw her hands move. That was something she was absolutely positive about.

With her options now reduced to next to nothing she closed her eyes and thought of her lover and best friend, Sailor Uranus. She wanted her last thought on this planet to be about her and not the drooling murderous abomination that was about to eviscerate her.

"Chronos Cyclone!"

A large tornado appeared seemingly out of nowhere and quickly engulfed Carnage and Sailor Neptune. In no time at all, the gale force winds inside the vortex began to rip and tear at the red symbiotic skin of the monster in its very center. All around him dozens of pieces of debris were picked up by the incredibly strong wind undercurrents and revolved about the red monster and his current prisoner.

A medium sized piece of stone that been broken off during the initial battle with the Sailors sailed around the cylindrical funnel of rapidly moving air currents. The speed the chunk of rock was travelling at made it act like a small ballistic missile and more than capable of inflicting serious damage on whatever it managed to make contact with. Still suspended above him, the thick tendril that held Sailor Neptune flicked and whipped around as Carnage twisted and turned. He was looking for either what was causing this clearly unnatural cyclone or a means on how to escape it. It was at that point that the piece of rock hit the red and black strand at precisely the right moment and proceeded to rip through it as its forward momentum gave it the force of a canon blast. As a result Sailor Neptune was flung upwards in a high arch when the tendril snapped upwards as it broke apart and the hurricane-like winds propelled her body skyward and out of the top of the tall rotating funnel.

She tightened her body's muscles and used her natural agility and balance to roll her body in mid-air so that her feet were once again underneath her. She landed down in a crouched position with one knee and hand resting on the cobblestone street about ten feet away from the tornado. She ran her other hand's fingers through her shoulder-length aquamarine hair as she tried to fix the messy effect the tornado's wind had put on it. She smiled to no one in particular as she felt her saviour step up to a spot close to her on her left.

"As usually, your timing is impeccable!"

"Nice choice of words Neptune."

"I do have that talent, don't I?"

Sailor Pluto smiled at her friend's calm and confident demeanour in the wake of almost dying a minute before. She had been watching the day's events as they had been unfolding from her post at the Door of Time. She had remained neutral for as long as she could manage as she knew that events had to happen as they were meant too or the risk of damaging the peaceful prophecy of Crystal Tokyo with her interference could be astronomical. However after seeing her friends be merciless maimed and almost murdered several times by a seemingly unstoppable killing machine, it finally became more than she could handle. Her loyalty to her friends ultimately trumped her sense of duty when she saw Sailor Neptune being heartlessly played around with by the sadistic monster.

"So, this is the monster that is threatening our king and queen's safety?"

"Indeed he is but to tell you the truth I am not all that impressed!

The magically created cyclone began to quickly dissipate which ended the conversation between the two warriors as they both refocused their attention. A short distance in front of them, the red and black creature rapidly became visible as the dust and dirt kicked up by the tornado's winds quickly settled back down to the ground. It was clear to both of them that Sailor Pluto's unexpected arrival and last second rescue of Sailor Neptune had greatly enraged him.

The red and black colours of Carnage's symbiote flowed, dripped and swirled across his body which portrayed his emotions like an old coloured music lamp attached to a stereo. Right now some of that living costume began to move faster and turn a darker shade of black if that was possible. Across his body, the tentacles of organic tissue that sprang out from his body and then quickly retracted back into it did so much quicker and with noticeably more intensity. He lowered his body by bending his knees and raised his elbows up and back behind his body. This gave the appearance that he was about pounce or lunge forward like a feral jungle cat.

"Let's finish this Pluto!"

"I agree. Let's hit him hard and fast!"

"Is there any other way?"

Sailor Pluto couldn't help but smile again at her team mate's off the cuff remark. She gripped her garnet rod tightly in her hands and balanced her weight on the soles of her knee-high white boots. Sailor Neptune likewise brought her hands up so that they were level with her eyes like a champion prize fighter. Without saying another word they both rushed toward the homicidal monster. They were both confident that they would halt his reign of terror together. They had too as there was no one else left.

End of Chapter 9