Chapter 12 – On the Front Lines
"Oh my gosh," whispered Sailor Ceres.
Sailors Vesta and Juno were standing the closest to her and were the only ones who heard her anguished whisper. Hybrid stood in the middle of the line of Sailors as they all watched the Black Moon's continuing attack from a rooftop. With the exception of Sailor Ceres' outburst, the other guardians of Crystal Tokyo remained silent as they scanned the area before and below them. Each of them was personally trying to take in the magnitude of the destruction and fear that was all around them.
Pillars of black smoke from dozens of raging fires reached their deadly fingers up to the heavens above, and from every direction conceivable, the sound of people screaming reached their ears. In the streets that they could see, people were running, trying to escape the invading enemy forces, or find safety in one of the neighboring districts of the city. There were no moments of silence as the inhuman shrieks of the Black Moon droids pierced through all of the other sources of noise around them. It was a chilling signal that they'd found some innocent soul who had been desperately trying to hide, or someone who had gotten turned around in the overwhelming chaos and fallen into their deadly clutches.
From their elevated position, the Sailor Guardians could see dozens of droids filling the streets. They watched in shock as a few of them snapped the necks of some innocent people, while others shot another group to pieces with their weapons. The Sailors' bodies tensed up as they cringed to see such a blatant disregard for human life. Those unforgivable acts and the dozens of others that they had seen since first arriving on the scene only angered the Sailors more, and each of their minds were spinning with ideas of what they could do to stop this.
Unfortunately, the most dangerous element of the attack was the enormous space ship hovering over them and the surrounding area. It was intermittently firing lasers and cannons down on the land below like a rain shower from hell. The blasts' impacts would level entire buildings and litter the surrounding area with debris and fiery rubble. Each explosion shook the ground like an earthquake, which spoke for how much power they wielded. After the latest barrage, there was a slight lull, and in that respite, the sound of heavy footsteps could be heard. It drew the Sailors' attention down to the ground, and over to the left of the building whose roof they were currently utilizing.
There was a loud crash, and then a cloud of dirt and dust billowed up as a medium-sized building lost part of one of its exterior walls, and exploded outwards. When the smoke cleared a few seconds later, a large shape emerged wearing a gray bodysuit that barely fit him. He was much larger than Hybrid, and his large muscles bulged with every move of his body. On the man's head was a large, metal horn that the Sailors knew immediately was razor sharp.
"The Rhino…" Sailor Earth said under her breath. She didn't finish her sentence, but then again, she didn't need to. This was an unexpected twist for all of them, and none of them knew how to handle it as of yet. Distant memories of prior battles with the grey monster flashed across the minds of many of the Sailors. They remembered that he didn't possess much in the way of intelligence, but he made up for it in terms of raw physical power and durability. He was almost like an old warfare tank that wouldn't was nearly impossible to stop.
In reality, none of them should have been surprised to see him, being as they had already encountered the Scorpion. It seemed only logical that the Rhino would make an appearance just as he had. They all watched as the Rhino lowered his head and grunted as he ran head on into the wall of another building, crashing through it, and disappearing inside. They could only assume that he would be coming out another wall of the building at any second.
"This has to end!" growled Sailor Vesta viciously.
"I agree," answered Sailor Venus through clenched teeth. Both of them readied themselves to jump off the rooftop and enter the fray below them.
"Wait! Where's Sailor Moon?" The frantic question came from Sailor Earth, and she was looking all around the group in a panic, frantically trying to find her best friend. Sailor Vesta and Sailor Venus turned around to look as well, adopting their abrupt departure. It was then that the rest of the group noticed that the pink haired Sailor princess wasn't with them.
"Sailor Mercury isn't here, either." That observation came from Sailor Mars, and as the group began to do an inventory of everyone present; they saw that she was indeed right. High above them, more lasers and cannons shot out of the enormous space ship above them, reminding them why they were there and what was still going on.
"We can't just stand around and wait for them! We have to do something right now!" Sailor Jupiter's words had her usual businesslike tone that immediately commanded everyone's attention. Off to her right, Sailor Uranus nodded in agreement, her short blonde hair blowing in the winds created by the assortment of examples of destruction around them. She lifted her chin and looked over at the only male member of their group.
"Call it, Hybrid!" The mention of his name by the tall Sailor warrior drew Hybrid's attention towards her and they locked eyes for a second or two. He and Sailor Mercury were the chief tacticians of the team, and he immediately began to take in the situation in its entirety before offering up any suggestions. He turned his back to the group and began to analyze every threat that he could sense around them, collecting any and all important information. When he was finished, he spun back around again to look at the group.
"Ok, listen up, everyone! Until we can find a way to either board or disable that ship, our primary goal is going to be containment. Sailors Uranus and Neptune, you two will work the perimeter. Anything gets three blocks away from here, you turn it around or you turn it to dust. None of those droids get out of this area, understood?" Both of the Outer Sailors nodded vigorously and launched themselves off the rooftop in opposite directions to get to work. As soon as they were out of sight, Hybrid turned to his left.
"Sailor Saturn." She immediately stiffened her body in a mimic of the militaristic respect of the soldiers of old as she awaited his orders. "Your glaive can cut through any substance known to Earth. Let's see if it can cut through a Rhino's hide." The tiny black-haired guardian gave him a curt nod of understanding as she gracefully leapt off of the roof to find and engage her target. Hybrid then turned his attention to the group of Sailors still left on the roof with him. "Sailor Quartet, you need to get these innocent people to safety. Move through the streets and save as many as you can. Don't engage the enemy unless you have to. Your key goal is to reduce the number of overall civilian casualties. Now get to it!" Hybrid locked eyes with each of the younger Sailors as he spoke, letting them know that now was not the time to goof off or let their immaturity get out of hand.
"We understand," said Sailor Ceres, speaking for all of them. The other members of the Sailor Quartet each snapped him a military salute for good measure. Now that Sailor Moon wasn't with them, Sailor Ceres was the unnamed leader of the group, and she quickly surveyed her troops.
"Let's go to work!" It wasn't much in the way of a motivational speech, but it would have to do. She and the rest of the younger Sailors dropped from the roof in near perfect unity. Hybrid watched them for a second or two more before turning around to face his wife and the remaining Sailors.
"The rest of us will directly engage the enemy, eliminating any and all threats and keeping them contained to this area." He turned to look down at the mayhem below him. He felt the others taking positions around him, and it comforted him a little to know that they were in agreement with him. No one spoke a word and a brief silence surrounded them. Hybrid turned his head and gave a quick glance to his left and right. As each of them felt his eyes fall upon them, they returned his gaze with one of their own, confirming that they were ready for battle.
"Let's get started then." His voice had lost its tone of military authority, and now it was just calm. Like the calm before the severe weather storm.
Sailor Saturn landed near the hole that she and the others had seen the Rhino disappear into from the rooftop. Every nerve ending was alive and she felt like she was more alert than she had ever been.
She edged carefully towards the hole, keeping her back pressed firmly against the piece of wall that he had so kindly left intact. If there was one thing that she didn't want, it was him sneaking up behind her. Her breathing was low and shallow, making it easier for her to listen for any sounds or signs of movement coming from the inside of the gutted building. She focused her heightened sense of hearing, filtering out the distant sounds of the droids and destruction that plagued the air. The silence of the area in her close proximity was almost deafening, and no matter how much she strained, she couldn't hear anything.
She inched forward slowly, until she could lean out and look through the hole into the building. She kept her weight on the balls of her feet in case she had to move quickly. She slowly peered around the edge of the hole. The interior of the building was completely demolished. Tables were either overturned or smashed to splinters, glass shards littered the floor along with any other kind of material that was breakable, and anything that had miraculously managed to stay on the walls was crooked or out of alignment as the large intruder had forced his way into the building, causing a mini seismic boom as he had done so. Sailor Saturn's tense posture relaxed only marginally as she registered that the Rhino was no longer playing house in this particular building. There was another large hole in the wall parallel to the one she was at. When she looked through it, she could see matching holes in the next two buildings as well.
"At least he'll be easy to track," she muttered to herself, beginning to jog after her target. He must not have been expecting a pursuit, since he hadn't made any attempts at hiding where he'd been or which direction he was going. It just made her job that much easier.
"Hurry, keep moving!" Sailor Ceres ordered with a heightened sense of urgency.
"Yes, the bad machine men will be back if we all don't skidaddle," Sailor Pallas added as she tried to usher people along as gently as she could with her hands. The group of citizens they were escorting between them shuffled along. A few of them nervously looked around them as they moved along, slowing their progress through the streets.
A few minutes ago, Sailor Ceres and Sailor Pallas had found this little band of survivors as they were about to get vaporized by a group of Black Moon droids. Both Sailors had immediately jumped into the fray without a single thought for their own safety and used their "Pallas Forceful Stop" and "Ceres Growth Burst" to dispatch the enemy soldiers that were standing between them and the group of citizens' freedom. They were now in the process of escorting the band of people hopefully to safely in the next district, where they anticipated the Royal Guard or other emergency personnel to be waiting for them so they could pass over their 'precious cargo' and the Sailors could go back to find more survivors.
"I hope that Sailor Vesta and Sailor Juno are ok," whispered Sailor Pallas, checking behind her to make sure that no one was trying to ambush them from the rear. They had split up into groups of two once they'd made it down from the building's rooftop following their assignment by Hybrid, theoretically hoping that they could cover more ground that way and save more innocent people before they got hurt…or worse.
"I'm sure that they're fine, Sailor Pallas. Now keep quiet and stay alert. Droids or worse could be waiting for us around any corner." Sailor Ceres turned her head back around to face the road ahead of them again, hoping against hope that what she'd said to her fellow teammate was the truth. She instinctively glanced up at the massive spaceship hovering in the sky above them as it continued its assault on the buildings around them. Part of her was wishing that she hadn't said that last part, because she was afraid that now she'd jinxed them on this already dangerous mission. Anything that happened from here on out would feel like it was her fault and she couldn't afford to be distracted any further when there was so much more other stuff around her that needed her attention.
As if on cue, four droids jumped out of the adjoining alleys in front of them. Now Sailor Ceres knew wholeheartedly that she'd jinxed them. She only hoped they would be able to somehow get out alive now. She immediately halted the group with a raised military hand gesture, but the first few people still ended up bumping into her because they had been slow to react to the abrupt halt.
"Sailor Ceres…" Her younger teammate's voice cut through the uneasy silence between explosions and distant screams before trailing off, and Sailor Ceres sensed that was because Sailor Pallas had seen the reason for the sudden stop, and was now waiting nervously for her orders on what to do next.
An eerie sounding growl tore through the standoff between the opposing forces and it made Sailor Ceres tense up even more. The new sound had come from behind her, not in front of her. She silently cursed as the pieces of the puzzle fell into place for her. They were now surrounded on both sides, and she could only assume that the droids that Sailor Pallas was now facing were armed with blasters, just as the ones in front of her were.
She estimated that they had only a few seconds before the droids would open fire on them. She had to do some quick thinking and weigh their options in her head and immediately realized that they had almost none. She highly doubted that Sailor Pallas could use her Forceful Stop and Ooze attacks on more than one target at a time and in two different directions, and she was even more confident that her Growth Burst attack wouldn't solidify enough in the time that they had, and definitely not before one of the droids could get a shot off with their blaster. With the group of civilians between them, the chance of them becoming casualties for the blasters was just too great. She didn't sign up to have collateral damage on her hands. Furthermore, they were fighting machines with bits of metal and wire for brains, so they couldn't be reasoned or negotiated with. She grimaced as she realized that distractions wouldn't work on them either. Her mind continued to race with other ideas that they could use to get themselves out of this potentially deadly situation. It was at that point in time that the droids in front of Sailor Ceres raised their weapons, and she could hear the electric hum as the guns were charged up.
"Deep Submerge!" The unexpected shout was immediately followed by a large blue ball of energy that was shaped like a planet dropped out of the sky, seemingly out of nowhere. It found its targets and vaporized the droids in front of Sailor Pallas. Almost instantly, another loud shout ran out from somewhere above them.
"Tidal Wave!" Another ball of energy appeared and proceeded to engulf the droids in front of Sailor Ceres, before a large wall of water hit them head on and found its way into each one of the droids, causing them to short circuit and explode.
Sailor Ceres raised her arms to shield her face from the flying shrapnel of the exploded exoskeletons the droids had been violently relieved of. After a few seconds and once the previous atmosphere of silence ensued, she lowered her arms and began to glance around at the rooftops in the vicinity. In the dim twilight of early evening, she spied a lone figure standing at the edge of a building. She locked eyes with her old mentor and silently thanked her for the assist.
Sailor Neptune acknowledged the thanks with a slight nod of her head before jumping to the rooftop of the next building and disappearing once again from sight. Sailor Ceres stared at the spot that Sailor Neptune had just vacated for a few seconds longer before turning to look back at Sailor Pallas and the others to make sure that they were alright. A wave of welcomed relief washed through Sailor Ceres as the meaning of what had just happened registered within her. Sailor Neptune's presence meant that they must be near the border into the next district.
"We're almost there, everyone! Keep your chins up and pick up the pace! We need to get moving again." No one raised any objections to an increased pace after what had nearly happened to them, and the group immediately resumed moving on. Sailor Ceres vowed to herself that she wasn't going to let anything like that happen again. She resumed leading the small band of survivors, and kept an even sharper eye out for trouble. She wasn't going to lose anyone on this trip or any of the others that followed. They had been lucky that Sailor Neptune had been around to assist them but they couldn't rely on that. If Sailor Neptune hadn't been there to help, she didn't know what would have happened. She had to act faster from now on and defend anyone that was under her protection. She clenched her hands into fists as she vowed not to be so helpless again.