28: "Appetite for Destruction"
And then the owner of the gigantic pillars and the enormous hand and the colossal arm appeared, lifting itself up, up, up, up, up, towering over the skyscraper and the entire cityscape, a behemoth to dwarf all other behemoths, a titan greater than all other titans, a beast so incalculably gargantuan that its shadow overwhelmed the entire city and sealed it in darkness. The monster had the form of a dragon, inconceivably mammoth, with three heads large enough to eat Japan's entire navy. As the Senshi stared in slack-jawed astonishment, it bellowed out a piercing shriek, the force of its roar so great that everything in the surrounding area was forced back by hurricane-level winds. The Senshi held their ground, for what good it did.
Sailor Mars swallowed nervously as the dragon turned its attention to the five insignificant specks below.
"Oh, shit."
"RUUUUUUUNNN!"
The Senshi scattered and leaped off the building, merely an instant before the mega-titan raised its other claw and crashed it where they had hitherto been standing. The monster's strength was so astronomical that it half-crushed, half-carved the entire building in one blow, from the rooftop down to the city streets, rendering the structure an enormous pile of rubble. The five Senshi latched onto other rooftops during their descent, but still continued to run, separating in different directions so as to better escape the devastation.
I am the last of the dying insane
You would scream at the things I've done
Knowing now that the dead still see
My blood it runs like mercury
Your last breath the sword comes down
She dies first speaking death to me
Philosophy, the vision, the view within
Duty, science, abstract cruelty
Sailor Venus glanced back, astonished that one of Tokyo's strongest buildings had been leveled in a single attack. She yelped and sprinted for her life when the enormous colossus pursued her—not as the slow, lumbering, clumsy beast she hoped it would be, but blindingly fast, catching up to her in seconds, effortlessly plowing through everything that stood in its way. It reached for her; she swerved at a right angle, narrowly avoiding its grasp. The rooftop she had been standing on collapsed, and another structure was flattened to the ground.
What are your final thoughts?
Do you want to kill me, or die in shame?
From my point of view
Justified action, the enemy burns
"How are we supposed to fight against that?!" she screamed. The monster reared up suddenly, noticing an infinitesimal dot leaping about, and ignored Venus to pursue it. It was Sailor Mercury; she had been fleeing in the opposite directions. The mega-titan caught up to her in less that three seconds, leaving more buildings crushed in its wake.
The fun of massacre in the brain
Bioweapons and I are the same
Look at their face, hatred in their blood
Pile up the dead, my humanity
X-rays burn all that you can see
Nobody knows what a body can stand
Skulls on fire yet mercy is worse
You seek only your pleasure in death
"MERCURY, LOOK OUT!" Mercury panicked as the creature skidded to a halt, flinging humongous slabs of steel and concrete her way as more buildings collapsed. She threw up a wall of ice and a second wall of bubbles to absorb the tide, but the monster's arm shattered both. It barely brushed up against her, but the force was so tremendous that she was flung several blocks away, hurtling straight to the ground. Sailor Jupiter nearly killed herself racing to save her friend; she took a risky jump and just barely caught Mercury in mid-air, rolling to a painful stop on the ground below. There was no time to do anything but run, as the gargantuan beast charged in hot pursuit. Sailor Mars actually tried attacking it, running and leaping from rooftop to rooftop in an attempt to keep up. One of her fireballs impacted the monster's face, but the beast didn't even react.
"Damn it! We can't even scratch him!"
What are your final thoughts?
Do you want to kill me, or die in shame?
From my point of view
Justified action, the enemy burns
Sailor Moon threw her tiara; she brandished her scepter; she even picked up a manhole and hurled it. The attacks either bounced off or left no effect, leaving her screaming and scrambling as the titanic monstrosity resumed its charge. Sailors Jupiter and Mercury found a car, and with a bit of hot-wiring from Jupiter's electric touch, they got the vehicle running again.
"Mercury, take the wheel! I'll see if I can't slow this thing down! Everyone else, hit him with everything you have!"
"That's what we've been doing, Mako!" Minako shouted. She had laid a solid fence of Love Me Chains between two buildings, hoping to at least delay the titan on his run, but the monster broke through like they were made of wet noodles, even crumbling the buildings they had been attached to. Mercury took off with Jupiter in the back, firing off bolts of lightning, every one as strong as the thunders of heaven, every one worthless. Then the streets went dark all around them, pitch-black in the middle of day, as the monstrosity leaped into the sky, so astronomical in size that it thrust nearly half of Tokyo into a black void.
Bacterial target, eyes exploding
Melting flesh through your mind
Become your madness insanity wins
Infant's flesh on the walls
Testing limits threshold of pain
Ripping out teeth to observe
I want blood
Yet that was a trifling matter, for the behemoth came crashing down again, hard and devastating as a meteor, leveling an entire block instantly, blasting many more in the aftershock. The waves of its trembling concussive blow rippled everywhere, encompassing kilometers of the city, upsetting and destroying everything in its path. Only too late did Mercury and Jupiter realize this violently overblown attack had been aimed solely at them; the shockwave lifted them and the car out of the street and threw them away. Jupiter had to put all of her effort into grabbing Mercury and kicking the door open just so they wouldn't be liquefied when the car finally reached its smashing conclusion. They landed hard, battered and hobbling, too winded to shield themselves from all the debris flying around.
"Holy—!" Venus stood gawking, unable to process the magnitude of what had just happened. Mercury's assessment that this titan surpassed the combined might of all their previous foes had been grossly miscalculated. The dragon wasn't merely more powerful than all their past evils combined, it surpassed them in leaps and bounds normally reserved for cosmic scale, and made it look easy. They weren't ants rallying against a tank so much as motes of dust floating harmlessly in the face of a scorching star. Over a fourth of the entire city now laid in ruins and the battle had barely begun. The Senshi were weary and fatigued just trying to survive, and not only did the colossus not have a scratch on him, but it seemed ignorant of their efforts. No amount of disheartening gloom could have compared to this overwhelming dread; no do-or-die speeches from their princess could uplift them.
Of course they still tried, courageous or foolhardy though it may have been. Moon went to rescue her fallen followers while Venus and Mars got the attention of their enormous foe. Venus summoned up her Shooting Star while Mars shot flaming bolts at the dragon's faces, hoping to at least get its attention. The beast didn't even blink, even when the shots hit its eyes. It finally regarded the infinitesimal speck called Mars as it sauntered over an abandoned residential area, flattening houses and offices merely by its presence. Mars was concentrating one long fiery blast on the beast and she was getting tired of holding it together, but she persevered, stubborn as always. She quit once the dragon took notice of her, and ran terrified as it charged. The beast towered over the building where she had been perching and, instead of knocking it over, dug its huge claws into the lower rooms and uprooted the structure. It actually lifted the entire building into the air, with Sailor Mars atop it.
Then there was nothing left to do but throw it. Venus launched her Shooting Star a few moments too late, but it certainly hit its target, perforating the dragon's back with countless beams of energy. The behemoth finally seemed to notice that these pitiful specks were attacking it, and whirled around, all six eyes narrowing in anger. Venus turned pale and instinctively shot Crescent Beams as the monster plowed through the city in its assault. It had been nearly three kilometers away when the attack hit it, and it only took a few seconds to reach her. Venus was swinging away on her chain with all her might but still wasn't fast enough, and got caught in a hailstorm of stone, steel, and glass. She fell and crashed without the aid of her shield, and did not stir. The monstrosity started thundering her way.
"Are you guys okay?!" Sailor Moon was frantic as she revived Jupiter and Mercury. They came to gradually, groaning and bruised and bloody, and it seemed no amount of her healing helped. Eventually they did stand, though very uneasily, and assured her they were alive, but hardly well.
"That thing's unstoppable!" Jupiter gasped. "Its power is so overwhelming... I don't even think a nuke could stop it!"
"Please don't even suggest such a thing!" Mercury exclaimed. Sailor Moon turned pale.
"Can you find any weakness at all?" she pressed. Mercury shook her head.
"Our best attacks don't even concern him. We're so small that everything we throw at it just bounces off, or does nothing. In the meantime, it's so large and fast that it could cover the entire city in less than five minutes, and so powerful that it doesn't even need to hit us—it just levels everything and leaves us with the collateral damage! At least there's no one left in the city to worry about."
"Yeah, no one but us. Well, the police and the national guard are supposed to be here..."
"Not that they'll do any good!" Jupiter said. She took a moment to rest and assess their enemy. Mars's whereabouts were unknown, and Venus was out of the fight. Jupiter and Mercury were weak, but accounted for, and Sailor Moon...
"Maybe I can do something."
"You have a plan?"
"Nope, just thinking crazy and desperate." Jupiter and Mercury smiled at each other.
"Sounds like a plan. Count us in."
"That won't be necessary. Just find Rei and Mina. I gotta go find a bike!"
"A what?" She sprinted away without giving an explanation, pigtails bobbing all the way. The two weary women sighed, looking at one another.
"Crazy and desperate, huh?"
"We'll be curious later. I've already found Rei's position, but she's in a very precarious state. Minako's location is more general, plus she's got that dragon sniffing around. I'm afraid rescuing one would be suicidal and the other would be sheer madness."
"Suicidal sounds fine with me," Jupiter smiled. Mercury mirrored her bravado sheepishly.
"Which leaves the reasonable one with madness. I just hope Rei appreciates the irony." They clasped hands and sprinted away, Jupiter to the dragon and Mercury going after Sailor Mars. When the building had been tossed, Mars had been thrown with it, violently and sporadically. She still had the sense to cover herself in a protective flame barrier, but when she finally struck ground, the impact broke the shield and nearly every bone in her body. Somehow she had crawled to safety, but the area she ended up in was very unstable, and would collapse at any time. Mercury honed in on her signal with her visor, approaching the remains of a building toppled halfway over a highway arch. A single false move would send the entire structure toppling down, and according to her readout, Mars had slithered directly under it.
"Rei! Can you hear me? Are you all right?" A few breathless moments of silence passed. Mercury reactivated her H.U.D. to hone in on Sailor Mars's signal. A faint blip showed up, drawing out a sigh of relief. Mercury picked her way closer, trying not to disturb the ruins. Gingerly, she ducked underneath the archway, freezing as she heard a disquieting groan. She didn't know whether it came from the weight of the rubble above them, or the dragon drawing near, and frankly, she hoped it was neither. She needed to keep calling out to Mars, but feared even her raised voice would cause everything to collapse.
"Rei? Rei!" She zeroed in on Mars's location, spotting her leg trapped under a cinder block. Mars was conscious, thankfully, cauterizing some of her lesser injuries with one arm and keeping an iron plating at bay with the other. She broke her concentration to glance at Mercury, then went back to work. Mercury ran over and held the sheet up for her friend so she could move the cinder block away. As Mercury released the sheet, the rubble trembled uncontrollably, so both Senshi made a mad dash for it, Mars clearing debris with her flames while Mercury raised up columns of ice to hold the collapse back. It all came crashing down at last as they leaped to safety, stirring an awful noise that unfortunately got the dragon's full attention.
"Can you run?" Mercury said. Mars had to force herself to stand.
"Do we have a choice?" The ground shook relentlessly as the beast drew near; meanwhile the duo was reduced to limping wrecks. As they rounded a corner, one of Tokyo's skyscrapers came hurtling down on top of them; they sprinted madly, narrowly escaping destruction, falling straight into the clutches of their enormous enemy. It lashed out at two neighboring buildings, cleaving them in two, sending the top portions raining down as countless chunks of rock. Mars and Mercury had no choice but to put forth all their energy in protecting themselves, but the dragon lunged forward, effortlessly breaking their barrier and uprooting them. It flung the Senshi far; they found themselves lassoed with a golden chain and pulled to safety, courtesy of Sailor Venus.
"Wah! Minako!"
"Are you two okay?!"
"Barely! That was some precision timing!"
"Let's kiss up later! Mako tells me Usagi's got something crazy cooked up. That's my specialty, damn it!"
"Honey, be quiet," Mercury said, giving her former lover the aforementioned kissing. Jupiter winced as she dusted herself off; it had been difficult rescuing Sailor Venus from that creature, but luckily, it had found something to distract it.
"Speaking of Sailor Moon, where is she? Sooner or later that thing's gonna notice we're still alive and—" She broke off as the sound of a roaring motorcycle pierced the air, getting louder as it drew near. The Senshi all jumped back as Sailor Moon rolled up on the bike, wearing a dark blue helmet and an exhilerated expression.
"Hey, everyone! I think I'm getting the hang of this!"
"Usagi, don't tell us you stole that!" Jupiter balked. Sailor Moon raised her visor.
"Of course not! This belongs to the Shibuya Police Department! So who wants a ride?"
"You gonna carry all four of us on that thing?" Mars grimaced.
"Just one, whoever's up for it. We'll get that dragon's attention while I lead it away from the city. The idea is to draw it to the ocean, hit it with everything we have, force it under, and have Mercury freeze it in! It'll drown and that'll be the end of it!"
"Great plan," Venus said ironically. "There's just one flaw, bunny-girl: that thing can level skyscrapers with one blow! I don't think it's gonna mind a few centimeters of ice! Besides, we're all tapped out! Even if we could force it anywhere, Ami wouldn't have anything left!"
"Okay, good point," she muttered. "Well, how about this: we lead it to Tokyo Tower, have Sailor Jupiter summon the biggest lightning bolt she can muster, use the tower to store and focus her energy, and blast the monster back to the prehistoric!"
"I have to admit, that one sounds a lot better," Jupiter said. "But what if it fails? I don't think that thing could be fazed by a real bolt of lightning! Even if there were a hundred of me..."
"Well, the only other option left is to ride in circles around it while everyone else hits it on all sides. Got a problem with that?"
"That barely worked with that Humbaba creature," Mars sighed. "Let's just face it: all of our efforts are futile. There's no way we can harm it."
"Not like this, anyway," Venus said. Her eyes suddenly lit up with an aura everyone was familiar with by now; she pounded her palm with her fist, sparkling with a bright new idea. "Aha! I know how we're gonna stop that thing! We're gonna go all Fantastic Voyage on him!"
"Go what?" Mars grimaced. Sailor Jupiter suddenly turned quite pale.
"Oh, no! Nononononono, Mina! That's beyond insane! That's so abysmal that I'm surprised you could even suggest it! There is NO WAY..."
"I don't understand," Mercury said. Venus winked at her and spoke in English.
"[Why, alimentary, my dear Dr. Mizuno!]" Mercury's face lit up, but hers was of joy.
"Oh, Minako! That's absolutely brilliant! Why didn't I think of that!?"
"Say what?!" Jupiter balked.
"Think of what?" Sailor Moon said, still clueless. Mercury giggled.
"Minako wants us to get swallowed by the dragon and destroy it from within."
"She does?" Mars stared at her contemporary incredulously, before beaming with pride and slapping her back. "Wow, I never thought I'd live to see the day that Mina's harebrained schemes actually made sense! I guess the universe finally unfolded on itself."
"But that's crazy!" Sailor Moon shrieked. "Are you saying you want to get eaten? By that thing?! ON PURPOSE?!"
"I know, it's dangerous," she winked, "but it's our only option. If we all combine our powers to form a barricade, we should be able to protect ourselves from its digestive juices, not to mention all the pressure, the lack of oxygen, bacteria, and anything else we should run into. We're so small that we could all fit through one of its throats, and there'd be no way it could defend itself or recover, so long as we hit all the right organs."
"You really have thought this through," Jupiter said quietly. She winced and scratched her neck. "Maybe a little too much, heheh! Okay, I'm going to trust you, Mina."
"Awesome! I knew I could count on you guys! So the four of us will head in while Usagi keeps it distracted, okay?"
"Usagi keeps it WHAT?! No, that's not okay!"
"Be reasonable, dumpling," Mars said. "Someone needs to keep that thing distracted long enough for us to jump in. That's where you and your bike come in. Then someone has to keep that thing busy, so it doesn't do anything that could endanger us. Go on and lead it away from the city; at least it won't be able to use all this junk against us. Finally, if we should fail, we're going to need someone on the outside to get in touch with the others."
"You mean...Haruka and Setsuna?"
"And anyone that will listen. You're our backup plan, dumpling. Please cooperate." Mars took Sailor Moon's hands, holding them gently, placing their foreheads together, smiling warmly. Sailor Moon couldn't object to that kind of pleading.
"Okay," she relented quietly, "but you have to promise to be careful! I'll start getting the dragon's attention. Give me a signal when you're ready to jump and I'll see if I can't open its mouth somehow. After that... Well, just don't make me watch, okay? And no good-byes, all right? It'll make it sound like...well, you know." She smiled sadly and revved away, leaving her four friends to their decision. The four Senshi put their hands together in a pile, nodding, summoning up their energy for a Sailor Teleport. They'd only get one shot at this: they'd have to make it count.
Human brain experiment
On prisoners open skull
Vivisection, live dissection
Repulsing to the core
Sailor Moon gnashed her teeth as she raced back to face the gigantic monster. It had been busy leveling more of the city, either in a mindless rage or to root out its miniscule foes. Once she was within visual distance of the creature, Sailor Moon raised her scepter, shining its light across the area. The dragon noticed at once, eyes narrowing with fury and annoyance.
"Ya want some of this?!" she screamed, flashing her backside. "Huh? Come and get some, ugly!" She revved up and tore away as fast as the machine could allow, just barely keeping ahead of the behemoth's rampage.
What are your final thoughts?
Do you want to kill me, or die in shame?
From my point of view
Justified action, the enemy burns
At the first intersection, she jerked around, following the road until she came to another turn. The buildings on the block all started collapsing as the beast impatiently plowed through in its search for her. Sailor Moon made sure to keep its focus by holding up the scepter again, this time aiming the light right at its eyes. The monstrosity actually winced and slowed down, blindly flailing through the urban sprawl, thrusting huge chunks of rubble at its enemy. Sailor Moon had to maneuver quickly and weave around countless falling stones, a feat that did a number to her insides. She almost hurled as she rounded another corner, this time pursuing the beast from its right flank. She noticed a beam of golden light fly across the air, Sailor Venus's signal, and knew it was time to act. Out came her tiara; she hurled it, impacting the monster on one of its throats. An infinitesimal sliver opened, finally drawing a few spurts of blood. Sailor Moon compacted the scratch by raising her scepter one more time, this time focusing its blazing energy on the wound. One of the mouths opened and a claw raised to assess the damage; Sailor Moon roared along with her enemy.
"NOW!"
Pathogens seek horrible end
Churning factories of death
Crematoriums see your crime
You will see me in hell
She yearned to look away but needed to be sure. Her four friends took a gigantic leap together, encasing themselves in a bubble of water, light, fire, and thunder just as they dove in. The dragon's jaws shut tight; Sailor Moon flinched; the world was momentarily silent.
Now she was all alone against an enemy more powerful than everything she had ever fought.
She took a deep breath and revved up the bike. No time for regrets now; she had a job to do.
"Catch me if you can, you son of a—"
VVVVVVVVVRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR...
To be continued...
Author's Note
The song playing throughout the fight scene is Slayer's Unit 731, which I felt was appropriately adrenaline-fueled. I'll be peppering the fights against this monster with lots of thrash metal, as I feel nothing else can convey them as properly (yes, metal in a Sailor Moon fanfiction). If you're not familiar with the song, check it out on iTunes and you'll agree I made the right choice.
When Minako mentions going "all Fantastic Voyage", she is referring to the movie of the same name. In the film, a group of scientists shrink themselves and travel inside a man's body, so the reference makes sense. Apparently Makoto has seen the movie, whereas Ami has not.
As to the dragon's identity, here's a hint: it's not Japanese, but Mesopotamian, specifically Persian (so it's not Bahamut). Technically it's not supposed to tower over skyscrapers, but once again, mythology allows for these liberties. I should really be calling it a "he", though, but its gender hasn't been specified in the story yet (so it's not Tiamat, either).