chapter two- rescue
Ami screamed as Rei collapsed against her, pulling them both to the forest floor. She scrambled to disentangle herself from the other girl then shook her desperately, hoping to revive her. It was no use; her body had had enough and shut itself down to recuperate.
"Makoto!" Ami cried. "Bring Minako over here to me. Distract…whatever this thing is while I bring the other girls to safety."
"But Ami I-"
"Makoto please try!"
She stood and bravely faced in the direction of the charging beast. I may be able to buy her some extra time, she thought. Ami closed her eyes and focused the energy within her. She had practiced it a million times. If she couldn't perform under pressure, in an actual combat situation, what was the point of training her powers at all? She could handle this, she knew what she was doing, she had to know what she was doing. Or they were already as good as dead.
Her eyes snapped open and she inhaled sharply. She brought her hands in front of her, focusing all of her energy into her curved fingertips. Water began to materialize around them, great, iridescent bubbles, that multiplied and grew as she concentrated. "Shabon Spray!" she cried finally, and the bubbles flew towards the monstrous creature, bursting in mid-air and creating a thick fog that she, miraculously, could always see through. Fortunately, this time was no exception, and she descended upon Rei, dragging her behind a giant tree trunk that, judging by the fairly golden brown quality of the exposed flesh had only recently fallen.
"Mako!" Ami called. "I can see you perfectly! Leave Minako, and charge that creature. Your powers do more damage than mine; I'll be there to help you as soon as I've secured Minako."
Makoto silently obeyed and ran warily off into the mist. Ami wasn't sure if her comrade could see through it the way she could. But her focus was on getting Minako to safety. She would simply have to trust in the abilities of her friend. Grabbing Minako under the arms and dragging her to beside Rei, she was vaguely aware of a cry of "Sparkling Wide Pressure" as the haze created by the bubbles began to dissipate. She stood tall and looked towards the sound, noticing the last sparks of neon lighting crackling into nothingness, while Makoto, looking surprised by her own power, surveyed the damage she had done.
For a moment the creature did not stir and Ami's heart leapt with joy. She charged towards her friend, ready to embrace her in relief and congratulations. Mako did not look at her, but kept her eyes glued to the hulking mass before her. It was then that Ami noticed the thing begin to stir. The lightning had only stunned it. It struggled back to its feet, furiously scraping the ground with its thick-clawed paws. Without warning it charged, bee-lining for Makoto, who remained wide-eyed and firmly rooted to where she stood.
"Mako run!" Ami shrieked. She ran as fast as her legs would carry her, fully prepared to leap on top of her friend, to push she our of danger, but she knew she would never make it. She stopped abruptly and focused her energy, lifting her arms and swinging them wildly above her head. Conjured water whirled about them and with a desperate cry of "Shine Aqua Illusion" she sent the water in a spiraling beam careening towards the monster.
It hit. The creature ceased in its pursuit, shook its head and roared its discomfort, its cry shrill and birdlike. It then craned its neck in the direction of the attack and spotted Ami. The attack was nothing more than a nuisance. The monster wasn't injured; she had merely redirected its anger. Fearing that she no longer had enough energy in her to execute another attack, and not willing to risk another dud in her current exhausted state, she ran. She heard Mako calling out to her, but could not make out what she was saying. She couldn't think; the powers of a normally supremely capable, pragmatic brain seemed to be entirely devoted to her own survival, to scrambling hopelessly to find some way of recovering energy so she could attack again. Lost in her distress, her foot caught under a fallen branch and she toppled face down onto the leaf-covered ground. She rolled over, spitting out dirt, and sat up to see the creature pursuing her once again.
"Ami!" Mako wailed. Streams of blue lightning shocked the monster from behind, and though it cried out in agony once more, it did not veer from its intended target. There was no escape; Ami braced herself for the attack.
Another beam of blue light hit the creature directly in the side of its dry, scaly neck, and with a final piercing screech it collapsed. Ami blinked in disbelief. Could it be? Mako saved us? She rose to her knees and crawled cautiously towards the creature. Had that final beam, that last ditch effort of the lighting-wielding soldier killed it?
"It isn't dead," a rich, male voice said calmly.
Ami gasped and looked to see a man with loose, dark auburn curls, standing a few yards from her. Beside him stood another man, smaller in stature, with short, untidy blonde hair and blue-grey eyes. Both were dressed in garments only gardeners and groundskeepers would ever be seen in on the moon, plain trousers, heavy, leather boots, tunics, and belts, the auburn haired one in a short maroon cloak, the blonde in a boxy black jacket. The taller one held an impressive looking firearm in one hand, which Ami guessed must have been the source of the attack that felled the beast.
"It- it isn't?" she asked dumbly.
"No," the same voice, which she now saw belonged to the taller man, replied. "Just stunned. It's not worth killing it. It's quite harmless, really."
"Quite harmless?" Mako spat. "It nearly devoured us!"
"Well if you would respect its territory and not trespass upon its food source then it wouldn't have any reason to attack you now, would it?" the blonde said, his tone higher and sharper than his companions.
"Food source!" Makoto half-laughed in disgust, "What food source?"
"The trees," the taller one replied and smiled softly. "You see they're herbivores. So, even if it had killed you, and don't get me wrong it certainly may have, it would not have eaten you. They're such stupid creatures. They don't realize that other living things don't have the same need or want of leaves that they do and consequently see everything near their precious trees as a threat to their resources."
"But Earthlings learn to recognize the signs of them and avoid their territory," the blonde added. "So they give us no problems."
Ami knew what they were getting at. "So you have already figured out we're not from Earth then," she said.
"Well even if you hadn't had this unfortunate encounter with the Iguanodon, we could have figured that one out form the look of you," the taller man declared.
"Is that what that thing was? An Iguanodon?" Mako asked, stumbling over the last word.
"It's a dinosaur," the taller one said. "The Earth's crawling with them, and not all of them so pleasant as our fallen friend her."
That thing was pleasant? Ami thought, horrified. If they'd run into one of a supposedly more ferocious variety, she suspected they probably would not have lived to find out what it was. She shuddered.
The blonde man had moved away from his companion and begun surveying the area. It didn't take him long to stumble upon the unconscious Rei and Minako, as Ami now noticed the spot she had thought so brilliantly concealed was in fact almost completely exposed. Unless someone stupidly dismissed the girls for mirages of slumbering wood nymphs, but the possibility of that was, frankly, nonexistent. Especially among the practical Earthlings.
"Nephrite, look here," the blonde called. "Two more them. More Moon Children for sure."
"Can you help them?" Ami blurted out, staring hopefully at the man called Nephrite.
"Did the Iguanodon do this?" the blonde man continued. Amy looked over to see him crouched over Rei, studying her mangled face.
"No!" Mako cried. She rushed over to where her friends lay, eyes trained suspiciously on the blonde man as he examined them. "We- our ship crashed here. They were injured during the wreck."
"Well there's nothing we can do for them here," Nephrite said finally in response to Ami's question. He joined his blonde companion beside the fallen girls, kneeled down and grabbed Minako by the arm, shifting to hoist her up onto his back. "Don't worry," he said, smiling at the ostensibly suspicious Mako. "I promise I will do them no more harm than has already been done to them."
"You're going to bring us to some human colony then?" Ami asked, hopefully, though she wasn't sure she should feel optimistic about the possibility.
"No, we're going to bring you to the lair of the magical healing dinosaurs that are going to miraculously make everything right in the world," the blonde chided.
"Hey-" Makoto began to growl.
"Cool it with the sarcasm Jadeite," Nephrite commanded, cutting her off. "They may be from the Moon, but I think they're well aware that life outside their precious little kingdom isn't so idealistic as they're accustomed to."
Ami didn't like where this was going. They had been sent to Earth as ambassadors, to offer the aid of the Moon Kingdom in colonization efforts, but she had a feeling they may have come decades too late. After all, the Moon had not been supportive of the idea to colonize Earth at the time it was proposed, none of the other planets had been. The Earth project was indeed a direct defiance of the Imperial Decree that prohibited colonization until further notice.
"Where…are we exactly?" Ami finally decided to ask. She did want to know where she was being taken but feared that it may be in shackles.
"The Middle Lands of the Earth," Jadeite replied. He now had Rei slung over his shoulders, stomach down, one of his arms grasping her wrist, the other between her knees. "You really did get thrown off course there, didn't you?"
"Where was your final destination?" Nephrite asked and Ami thought his tone expressed a little too much probing interest.
"Uh…the…Northern Islands," Ami lied, spitting out the first geographical location on Earth she could recall from reading the reports on previous Earth missions. "We…have business with the um…the king there."
"How fortunate," Nephrite said, "for you all then that his son is here in the Middle Kingdom even as we speak. He is currently exactly where we are taking you to."
"Well, uh, excellent," Makoto near stuttered, and Ami hoped it was an indication that she understood her intent to conceal their actual mission, and actual identities from their questionable saviors.
"And surely he knew you were coming Sailor Jupiter?" Nephrite asked, with a knowing smile at Makoto.
"Oh I don't expect so," Makoto replied, clearly unaware of the fact that any hope they had of deceiving these Earthlings was lost. "After all communication with Earth is very difficult since-" She suddenly stopped. "Hey wait a minute-"
"Makoto," Ami whimpered, "it's no use. They know."
Jadeite laughed. "Well we'd have to be pretty clueless not to. Four girls, all about seventeen, clearly dressed in Moon Kingdom standard issue uniforms for space travel, but in colors coordinating to those of the princess's guardians little sailor uniforms. I'd say it's pretty damn obvious."
"Well we weren't going for subtlety!" Ami cried. "We had no intention of sneaking around." Only now I think maybe we should have.
Nephrite sighed and began to walk away, Minako still quite securely on his back. "You can spare us your little story," he said. "Chances are you'll only end up retelling it anyway. What matters now is getting medical attention for your friends here. There's no telling how badly off they really are."
And that was the truth. Both of them thought better of arguing it. They followed Nephrite through the area of gnarled, fallen trees to a clearing, in the midst of which was a perfectly flat, circular stone platform. Wordlessly, he handed Minako off to Ami and Makoto to support between them, and Jadeite indicated that they all should move to stand in the center of platform. Ami then noticed four narrow stone pillars, arranged in the shape of a diamond, surrounding the platform, each with a small sphere at the top of it. Nephrite gently touched first the northern most, then the eastern, western and finally southern. Once he'd removed his hand from the last sphere, Ami felt a peculiar sensation of air blowing upward from the ground below her, but barely had time to even think about determining a source when she was engulfed in a flash of light so brilliantly bright that she was forced to close her eyes.
When she opened them she found that she was not in the forest at all, but standing on a street next to what looked to be the steps of a castle, though it was rather unremarkable in comparison to the elegant palace on Mare Serenitatis. The Moon Palace was all ivory marble, with glittering domed rooftops. It was its own community, surrounded by the ever-calm sea, with housing for all of its inhabitants, servants, tutors, guardians, each house like a miniature version of the central palace. Here the castle was unpolished stone and wood, the steps heavily trodden upon with traces of dirt and grass all over them. The houses were dismally mismatched little huts, with wooden or it looked like perhaps even mud siding and straw-thatched roofs. After witnessing first hand the incredible means of teleportation the Earthlings had developed, Ami was a little disappointed by the city into which they had so brilliantly teleported.
Then she noticed it. The most incredible stonewall she had ever seen. She was sure it must surround the city entirely, though she could not see for certain. It was monstrous, at least twice the height of the castle, which, although it was rather plain looking, was a formidable structure. And as far as she could determine, there were no doors, nor gates, nor any mundane means of entering it.
Jadeite started on up the stairs to the castle, Rei still slung over his shoulders. Nephrite lifted Minako up into his arms and followed. There was no point in attempting to escape, particularly since they a) had not determined if they were in fact prisoners and b) would be abandoning their injured companions to an uncertain fate, so Ami and Makoto walked on behind the men. They were lead into the great hall, where a row of attendant guards bowed low and let them pass.
The hall was as stark and militant as the castle's exterior, the walls bare, save for a few torch hooks. Cast iron chandeliers hung in three locations leading up to the dais, and a much tread upon green carpet paved a clear path to the throne upon it. In wooden throne, that was strong and simple, distinguished as throne rather than chair only by the sheer size of the thing, sat who Ami guessed must be the king of the Middle Kingdom. He was tall and tan, with long silver falling straight past his shoulders and down his back. His eyes were a rich, earthy green and they studied the girls with a completely unreadable interest. He was dressed very much like their two saviors, if one could call them that, except he wore a long, regal cloak, fastened across the shoulders by an ornamented gold chain. It was the flashiest thing Ami had seen all day, though that wasn't saying much.
"Your majesty," Nephrite said, bowing his head. "These girls were out wandering in your forests. They had an unfortunate encounter with an iguanodon."
The king smirked and laughed softly. "You mean to tell me one medium sized dinosaur that doesn't even have proper teeth did all of this?"
"No!" Mako cried, and Ami shot her a warning look. "No, your majesty," she repeated more softly.
"You majesty, if I may," Ami began, bowing in military fashion. She then explained how they had come from the moon lost control of their ship upon entering Earth's atmosphere and how their two comrades had been injured in the crash. She confessed to them being the guardians of the princess.
"I see," the king said stoically. "And what business have you on Earth?"
"We have come to offer the aid of the Moon Kingdom in the colonization of Earth," Ami replied. The words flowed slowly and uncertainly, though they were entirely true.
The king chuckled cheerlessly. "Well, I shall have to hear all about it. You shall have an audience with me, later this evening perhaps? But first, I think we ought to worry about your comrades."
"I have already ordered servants to come and take them to the infirmary Kunzite," a voice echoed from the back of the great hall. Ami spun around to see yet another young man, this one apparently younger than the rest and decidedly fragile and effeminate in comparison to the impressive stature of the king. Six other men in various stages of life stood beside him, and Ami assumed they must be the servants of whom he spoke. They moved towards the injured senshi.
"That would be the son of the man with whom you claim to have business," Ami heard Nephrite whisper to Makoto as he leaned close to her ear.
She did not humor him with a response.
"If you'll just follow me mistresses," a servant said upon reaching the girls. Minako and Rei were already being passed off to other servants and carried out of sight. "I shall take you to the infirmary."
The infirmary was considerably more modern looking than the rest of the castle. Ami had half-expected a place with wooden cots and straw mattresses with nothing but questionable herb fusions and a set of knives for treatment purposes, but this place looked as though someone simply removed sick-bay from one of the Moon Kingdom's largest royal cruisers and planted it in the middle of the castle. She was glad to see her friends machine-scanned thoroughly for injury and though they would not have the incredibly healing powers of Queen Serenity at their disposal, it seemed to her that the Earth physicians had knowledge of and access to modern healing devices.
Within twenty minutes the cut below Makoto's eye had been sealed and a salve applied to help with the healing process and bruising, and she and Ami had been brought to vacant living quarters, changed into plain linen dressing gowns and left to rest while their companions remained in treatment. Minako still had not waken, but the Earth physicians assured them that she should be fine, aside from a splitting headache, and Rei had begun to stir just as servants were ushering the two conscious senshi away to rest.
Makoto lay in the bed beside Ami, on top of the covers, arms folded behind her head. "Do you suppose they're right? That Rei and Minako will be fine?"
"I expect so," Ami replied. She too lay restless upon top of the bulky comforter. Something of such weight would never be necessary on the moon; it never got that cold. "Something tells me that medicine has been a primary concern of Earth's people. It's obviously a far more dangerous place than we ever expected."
"I guess you're right," Makoto agreed. "If they have those strange creatures all over the place. They obviously have gone out of their way to fortify themselves against them."
Ami nodded, certain that her friend referred to the massive wall barricading the city. Even so, she was sure there were many times when Earth's physicians had had to treat injured soldiers, scouts, and possibly civilians too. In some ways, if anyone had to suffer a traumatic injury, Earth seemed the place to do it.
There was a knock at the door. A servant immediately entered without invitation. Two others, both women, their arms full of fabric entered after him.
"The king requests that you come and dine with the court," the first servant said. "He sends you these clothes to wear."
The two women servants unraveled the bundles in their arms and lay out two gowns on the bed. They were complicated and heavy looking, but really quite beautiful, though not in the same airy and elegant fashion of the Lunar court. Ami wondered to whom the gowns belonged.
"Thank you," the princess of Mercury said, curtseying in polite courtier fashion. "We shall be delighted to accept his majesty's invitation."
The servants bowed and left them.
"Ami, do you think we should be concerned at all?" asked Makoto.
"Of course, we must always be alert," Ami replied. "But we've no tangible reason to mistrust him and our friends are still in his physicians' care. We've no choice but to cooperate."
NOTES:
So yeah, of course dinosaurs were all named by modern scientists, but what the heck! Easier to just use the modern classifications and help with the visualization than to make up new archaic names and have to go into super lengthy descriptions.
I dreamed up this idea of the conflict between the Earth and Moon taking place during the late crustaceous era when I was in a general science class in college and we were studying the planets.