We do not own "Sailor Moon" nor any of the characters.
"SAILOR MOON ETERNAL"
The 6th Season of the Sailor Moon Saga
Chapter 38
"Sister Time"
Weeks pass in relative peace in Tokyo, with a brewing storm cloud hanging over the Sailor Soldiers who protected this planet in standby ready anticipation of the looming, coming battle ahead.
The red streak of a racing hot rod rushes past as if in an attempt to outrun it, flying like the wind, eating up the chilly early winter coastline.
Amaralexis Sokova was running again.
To keep one step ahead of the enemy, to be able to protect the one she holds so dear, to separate herself from everything holding her back from her latest mission, this golden woman goes back to what she did best, what she always returned to whenever she was lost—and, not admitting it even to herself, frightened—she looks to the wind to carry her away.
For in the end, Alex could only rely on herself and her guardian planet, Uranus, unwilling to risk trusting in anyone else to accomplish the unforgiving task assigned to her alone.
Keep moving. I'm the only one who can do what I have to do. I am the only one who can keep Michelle safe from this wretched destiny.
Lonely thoughts pass through her wind blown head as the breeze whips her tossed bangs about.
I don't need him for that. I don't need him for anything…
Alex's frustrations were now doubled by the several weeks' long disappearance from her life of that someone which she once was fool enough to suppose forever belonged to.
But duty to Michelle had gotten in the way. Alex let her torn soul become angered and embittered in the animosity towards another roving piece of starlight. And it was enough to drive her away from her own.
I don't.
Alex half expected Sayer to return to their gutted apartment she had visited on and off for these past few weeks, just to see if he was there. And when he didn't, after those first days, Uranus strengthened herself in the belief that she started out with a long time ago—that she is the only one she could rely on. Michelle needed her and her alone.
But secretly, somewhere hidden inside, Uranus' soul cried for her Fighter to forgive all the terrible things she had said.
Alex's overwhelming pain—the soulful kind, much more beyond the broken physical—made it hard for her to understand anyone else's other than Michelle. Her soulmate partner's heart was so injured, for it was still linked spiritually to a traitorous dark force that compassionate Star Fighter had feebly sided with, so Uranus had heatedly pushed him away.
But for her beloved Amara, Michelle could see past her own soul's torment, and still empathize with her unspoken suffering. Studying her silent cousin for mile upon mile, Michelle knew her well enough to see when her strong heart was crying.
All of a sudden, Alex notices Michelle's intent gaze upon her. She changes her frown and furrowed brow into a quick, pasted smile.
"It's good to be just out on the open road again, free as the wind. Just you and me, no strings attached. No more battles. No more arm slings or bandages to change. No more troubles. Feels right, eh, Michelle?" Trying to uplift her partner's spirits and not wanting her own sour ones to drag Michelle back down into the doldrums, Alex defies her own mental anguish.
The strong, independent woman wraps a thankfully healed up, protective arm around Michelle's lately always trembling thin shoulders.
"You're running again."
The spacey, yet profound words were whispered more on the flowing winds to Alex's torn mind than aloud, as her soulmate's endless sea blue eyes gaze keenly back at her.
"Find him, Amara." Michelle's soft spoken reply whispers out full of emotion as she leans her aqua curls to her golden-haired best friend's chest.
"Michelle, I've told you already. It's only you and me now. You don't need—" Alex begins again to try to impress upon her fragile cousin that her attachment to that detestable Robin Starr was a thing of the past. Just a sorry mistake that Alex should never have allowed Michelle to—
"No, Amara. It's not only you and me. Not anymore. I know it. You know it." Michelle's ocean blue eyes fill with tears. "You love Sayer as much as I love my Robin. Don't let your destiny with him slip away because of me—because of thisterribletrial. I will never let go of Robin...Never." Michelle vows with an inner determination. Pain and sadness and hurt were all unable to extinguish the deep burning flame of her fathomless soul's well of fated love.
Alex doesn't know what to say for a moment. But the shining light of hope behind Michelle's eyes—even if it was at the mention of his name—was something that Alex had longed to see for the past three torrential weeks full of angst and misery for them both.
"Her Majesty thinks quite the contrary, Sailor Neptune." A lofty, condescending voice comes from the dusky side of the sunset, causing Michelle and Alex to break their gaze.
Hovering alongside the 90 mph Ferrari was a dark greenish haired man who seemed to effortlessly float at a matching speed over Alex's open roof driver's side.
"You've been a hard pair to track down. Do you know that, dears?" A delicate, birdlike white woman appears on the opposite side, near Michelle in the passenger's side as if the speeding vehicle was standing still.
"How have you been keeping your energy signatures hidden from us, hmmm, ladies?" The familiar dark form of Lord Opalson demands, his arms crossed as he appears before them.
"Never mind all that, Opie! I've got a score to settle with this one!" Fire red flashes a moment for Alex to recognize the sneering face of Lady Ruby appearing directly behind her shoulder. Her long-clawed fingernailed hands slice Alex's strapped in seatbelt, grabbing the steering wheel and jerking it wildly.
Experienced racer Alex Sokova fights for control of the spinning out vehicle. Her instinctive years of expert driving and well cared for braking system were the only things stopping the Ferrari from diving straight over the cliff's edge.
SCREECH!
Ruined tires burn rubber on the pavement as Alex throws her arm out to halt Michelle's body from pitching forward, her first instinct always for Michelle.
But Michelle was not there.
Alex's own forehead hits the steering wheel hard, causing her world to spin out as red blood runs down her distressed eyes…
"Where do you suppose Alex and Michelle got off to? They're not at either the Three Lights' old apartment or Michelle's town mansion. And Susan hasn't heard from any of them at her house for the past week. I'm starting to get really worried!" The Sailors were once again at an emergency Scout meeting, every day over this week. Lita puts out the perplexing question after the two mysterious Outers had vanished without a word or so much as a call as to their friends' whereabouts.
Sayer, too. But Alex made it pretty clear he wasn't welcome around her anymore, poor guy…
"I don't know. Alex didn't call any of you, either? I mean, with these powerful new enemies and everything, shouldn't we all stick it out together?" Amy asked, as always looking up from her computer readouts as the five Inners, Darien and the two guardian cats sit around the table at Rei's temple.
"Yeah, safety is in numbers! Right, guys?" Artemis agrees, nodding. He was glad at least his Inner Soldiers were holding it together.
"Right, Artemis." Mina nods in agreement with her cat.
"Yeah, like, right! You know Alex never listens to anything anybody says!" Rei twists her lip. Sailor Uranus' rebellious attitude never mixed well with her organized one.
She even walked out on her own husband. And everyone says I'm mean to Chad! What was that all about?
"You must admit, Uranus has always been a difficult Soldier to work with." Darien, busy helping Amy on the computer trying to track down any new enemy sightings, comments all-knowingly.
"Still, she's part of our team, Scouts, and from what we've gathered thus far, she and Sailor Neptune seem to have an important role in this new enemy's attacks." Luna says, levelheaded, trying to piece together the facts.
"No wonder, if they have Robin! I sure hope he's all right. I wonder what they've done to him with all that 'Heir' stuff you were telling us about, Amy. I miss him, too." Mina sighs for her still favorite idol with the silver mane and dreamy lime green eyes.
Sigh.
"I sympathize with that sentiment, Mina." Luna, with a soft spot for her beautiful eyed Robin still, sighs as well. "But if what the enemy says is true, we have to beware of one of even our closest allies. They may have totally turned his mind against the side of good, by all reports."
"Oh, Luna! Why do things always have to be this hard?!" Serena lifts her head up from one of her supposed Scout meeting naps. There were tears in her eyes for the loss of one of her dear friends. She had really been listening all the while, but the subject was too melancholy.
"Because life is a trial, Princess." Tara's small, subtle voice always saying things too deep for her age, enters the conversation as she, Terry and Susan, slide open the door and join the meeting.
"Have you heard from them yet?!" On her feet, anxiously, Serena turns to Susan, clinging to her older friend's tanned hands. Susan was as close to Alex and Michelle as it came, all three of them forging a bond as the Outer Sailor Guardians. But Serena, in her worry, had forgotten Alex's roughshod treatment of Susan and her subsequent, terse relationship with Terry.
"No, Princess. I'm sorry." Susan shakes her head sadly, for she had forgiven Alex, if not forgotten, the stinging words. She too wished for the peaceful togetherness they had all had enjoyed, not so long ago.
"Nor from Sayer." Terry says with worry, his youngest sibling having never spent a day alone in his entire life heretofore. The tall young man with concerned eyes, for one, did not forgive Alex quite yet for not only hurting Susan's feelings, but doing this to Sayer as well. She had cut his passionate soul badly, for Terry knew his brother well. He was concerned why Sayer had not come to him as he always did in the past, after the cold hearted woman had turned on him.
"Oh, Sayer..." Serena whispers. She understood how Alex's cool attitude towards him could hurt her friend so terribly. Serena knew deep inside how perfect the unlikely two were together and how the passionate man from the stars had come to love her rebellious friend, and she him, truly. It was just this new crisis that hit home which had driven them apart.
"I told you it would never last! Alex and Sayer!? Hah! They have such bad karma together." Rei huffs in a whisper in her snide way to a saddened Lita.
"Don't say that, Rei! You're horrible!" Serena suddenly bursts. Everyone turns to her with wide eyes. They all realized how dear to Serena's heart Sayer and Alex both were. She firmly believed their wild hearts had found in each other the happiness which had escaped both of them for so long.
Serena's temper flares only for a second though. She was sorry immediately after any angry words and able to admit it, truthfully, honestly. She was the opposite of Alex in every way.
"I'm sorry, Rei, guys. I'm just so worried about them being alone now. I'm worried about all of you, too. And I'm scared. New attacks. New enemies. New danger. But being with my friends makes me feel better already." Serena smiles, touching their hands and squeezing them each tightly.
"I don't want anyone to be left alone anymore! I love you all so, so much!" Serena's brightness, her shine, her friendship, envelops the entire room, as the group who had stuck it out through thick and thin all know that none of them were alone because of her and her power of love.
Through a crimson mist of throbbing pain, Alex could hear her screams. Summoning, almost inhumanly possible, a strength with a will that went beyond her deep cut wounds, Alex's bloody head rises, removing from her jacket pocket a transformation stick.
"URANUS CRYSTAL—"
She begins to call to her guardian planet for its power when—
KICK!
A tall army green lace up boot brazenly kicks Alex's gripping hand with unforgiving force, bruising the strong palm and recently healed wrist as her power stick skitters from the car window across the coastal road and over the edge of the cliff...
"Are you really the Heir's chosen bride? You'd think such a powerful man would have better taste than a girl with such color of hair!" Giggling, vainly proud of her own long snow white braided coiffure, the young villainous known as Swanette, flips that braid over her shoulder with a look downward at Michelle.
Her partner in evil, Dracon, holds their captive callously, bending back Michelle's two delicately artistic arms without care.
"And what is wrong with aqua hair, Miss Swanette?!" Booming in like thunder, a more womanly voice compared to Swanette's childish high pitched tone, joins the conversation.
Queen Aquamarianna herself in all of her slinky blue-green glory, materializes before the group with a look of insulted anger passing over her face. She coldly shoves poor Swanette out of the way like she was nothing more than a bothersome ragdoll.
Suddenly, her irritation was replaced by a gaze of feminine curiosity. The Queen's eyes alight evilly as she grabs Michelle's chin, looking deep into her eyes.
"His mate, yes." An experienced, worldly woman, Aquamarianna knew full well that look.
He was still reflecting in Michelle's blue eyes and from that mirror, Aquamarianna knew that this scared, wide-eyed young woman was indeed the one they'd been seeking out.
There is something about your eyes, yes...Why does Metallia fear you so? It is fear, I know. Even the Queen of all evil cannot fool me.
Aquamarianna also vainly believed her intelligence quotient was far superior than any other.
What secrets do you hide, little mermaid, that the all-powerful Heir would find so alluring? So much so that would keep him from my temptations? It was as if, once being with you, your prince charming no longer needs nor wants for anyone else…
Such a perfect fairytale world you lived in, once upon a time…
These pondered questions in Aquamarianna's mind turn her thoughts to her own old wound. She was still a relatively young woman, though she secretly feared herself past her prime. And although attempted many times, something much desired was devoid in her life...
"Are you already with his child, perhaps?" Aquamarianna grasps at Michelle's shawled frock, parting its buttons roughly to place her cold hands right on Michelle's stomach.
"Stop! Please, stop!" Michelle sobs. The pain behind the jealous queen's words was even stronger than the rough man's grip on her arms, twisting them further backwards.
"Or are you incapable of producing the Heir's heir?" Aquamarianna could not imagine a woman ever preventing such a longed for thing as a baby. But her energy signature sensing skills told her that the struggling new bride before her was not yet with child.
Good. That problem may have complicated matters for my King and I with Metallia…
Evil cruelties and feminine jealousies had twisted her own frustrations onto Michelle nonetheless, and Aquamarianna decides to strike the girl with everything she had available.
"Then maybe I will be able to provide her Heir with—" The taunting queen starts to boast, the only one knowing her barren inadequacy as she disguises her depravity when Michelle's silent mouth speaks, her hand fiercely ripping from its hold as she slaps Aquamarianna across her shocked face.
"My Robin would never be with such a clutching woman." On thrashing waves of fury, Michelle rumbles, even as Dracon, embarrassed to have lost control of such a frail arm, clutches it back, twisting it again until the oceanic maiden squeals in pain.
"How dare you slap me?! How dare you! And to think, I was actually considering sparing you! Of pleading with Metallia to turn you to our side for the Heir's sake! But no longer! You will die here the worthless creature you are!" Anger flaring, Queen Aquamarianna brings her fingers to her fuchsia tinted lips. They explode with fuming, covetous energy as she blows Michelle a searing, full-blast direct and powerful, deadly kiss.
Though she could do nothing to help as she fiercely battles hand to hand with her worthy red-headed opponent, Alex watches in desperation, fully aware she would be unable to reach Michelle in time...
"MICHELLE!"
"Hey! May I cut in to this dance?"
SMASH!
"First of all, you should never waste kisses like that, Lady!" A strident voice sings strong and smooth from out of nowhere, a power grip yanking Dracon forcefully away from his hold on Michelle.
"STAR FURIOUS PUNCH!" Disoriented by the flowing dark streak of his previously concealed, unseen attacker, the tall, forest green man was then pummeled in the gut. Dracon crashes like a cueball right into Lord Opalson on the way out, both wicked billiard balls smacked miles down the highway by a shimmering pale blue fist packed punch.
Freed from her captor's grasp, Michelle slumps to the ground as the deadly energy kiss sizzles over her head, just missing striking her down.
"Second of all, this woman is not a worthless creature."
"STAR DELIRIOUS KICK!"
In a one, two, three, four knockout round to make many a Fighter proud, from out of nowhere, Super Sailor Star Fighter invokes both of his newest energy attacks.
Confused by the showering laser light show of Star Fighter's mighty fireworks kick, Aquamarianna and Swanette both were blinded as their useless eyes desperately tried to look up and down for the source of that annoyingly melodic voice that so rudely—and suddenly—attacked poor, dazed Dracon. The two of their rubbed, blinking eyes had only caught a glimpse of the speeding black blur as it suddenly stopped directly in front of them, revealing the gorgeous form of a leather-clad woman wearing four inch heeled boots up to her thighs whose high kick had a meteoric blinding effect on them.
"And third," Star Fighter smirks wickedly right in the faces of the two surprised women. "There's nothing all that beautiful about your ugly face, lady!" With those final insults, Fighter, in far too 'ungentlemanly' an action for a man—but hey! when you're a woman, roll with it!—simultaneously launches two more flying "STAR FURIOUS PUNCH"-ing fists out, double decking both Aquamarianna and Swanette right in their flabbergasted, flattened, bloodied faces, sending them flying miles down the road as well.
"Heads up, Sailor Uranus!" Fighter's tone was still tentative, but Alex Sokova's secret heart soared in the midst of battle as that part of her welcomed his sorely missed voice nonetheless, after these empty weeks spent in denial without him.
She and Lady Ruby, scuffling in the dirt by the side of the road, glance up to see Fighter, holding Michelle in one arm, and chucking a golden wand with the other through the sunsetting air towards Alex.
So eager to steal the object from its rightful owner, Ruby looks away from Alex for a split second, trying to catch the zinging power stick in her grasping claws.
"#amn% *itch & #ell$%!"
But that split second was all quick Alex needed. She uses the opportunity to land a swift kick, tripping her enemy—Ruby swearing foul expletives as she goes down—as an enraged Alex then steps hard on Ruby's hand.
Smashing her boot's heel to dig in hard, punishing Alex gets even with the red firebrand
as she scoops the power stick in her own still smarting appendage, giving 'Lady' Ruby one last powerful kick in the head as she does.
"URANUS CRYSTAL POWER...MAKE UP!"
As Alex transforms, Michelle leans to Super Sailor Star Fighter with a small grateful smile.
"Ah—Eeeahhh!"
Then her smile turns to a resolute frown when the mistress of the ocean pulls out her own power stick to a screeching Fighter's cry as he was suddenly blasted back and downed by a dark energy bolt from behind.
"NEPTUNE CRYSTAL POWER...MAKE UP!"
She calls out, transforming into the elegant Super Sailor Neptune as water and waves encircle around her.
"So you have finally transformed, I see. No matter. The result will be the same." Calmly returning to the battle scene—unruffled, even though his own wife was down, her red hair even redder with her own blood dripping down her forehead—Lord Opalson floats back above them on the horizon. With a smirk on his dark features, he raises one hand to the sky and a large dark opal appears in it, charged with deadly energy waves.
"Yes, it will, indeed. Withdraw your attack, Opalson. I will inflict the final damage here." A similar accent, though his poise and stance were disparately royal, King Pearlellion and Lord Opalson look at each other with sheer contempt on both their faces.
Uranus, Neptune and the floored Fighter exchange looks at the seeming dissent within the enemy's ranks.
"Don't overtax yourself, old man." Opalson snaps nastily, continuing to charge his opal orb.
"Do not overtax my patience, brother. I will be the one to bring Neptune's lifeless form to Queen Metallia." Pearlellion states authoritatively, energizing his own similarly sized pearl orb.
"Don't let 'em tell ya what to do, luv!" Ruby was still recovering from the blow to her head as she holds it, appearing next to her husband in the air.
"That guttersnipe deserves not an answer from you, my King!" Stuck up Queen Aquamarianna appears as well, beside her husband, turning her high class nose up at her low class sister-in-law. The two polar opposites had never gotten along very well and fought like two lionesses every time they came near one another, fueling their already feuding husbands' rivalry.
"I will destroy her." Pearlellion states again, lifting his monstrous pearl to the sky, ready to fire.
"No, I will!" Like two quarreling children, Opalson would not be outdone by his older, bothersome brother. He, too, was anxious to release his own evil energies upon the trio.
Two more minds had the same idea, but instead of competing, they worked together, powers marrying together into a ferocious force across the wind and the sky.
"URANUS SPACE SWORD BLASTER!"
"STAR SERIOUS LASER!"
As one, these two light beaming blasts, each take down an energy sphere. Fighter's precise laser explodes the opal, as Uranus' exacting sword swipe detonates the pearl. The resulting explosion causes the entire landscape to burst into dark and white light, blinding the three Sailors for a moment as Uranus and Fighter, with one mind, use their own bodies to shield Neptune.
When the brightness clears, the two argumentative couples had vanished. The only traces left of the battle were Alex's spun out tire blown Ferrari, a few singed trees and...
Swanette and Dracon's bodies that were still lying strewn some ways down the blacktop, one splattered across the pavement, the other curled up on the side of the highway, both looking like road-kill.
"So what are we gonna do with them? I really must've packed a mean punch." Rubbing at his previously energy charged fists with a crooked simper at not knowing his own new energy's strength, Fighter asks. He leaps over to where the pale young woman and the dark man lay, still alive, but thoroughly comatose. He nudges them each with sharp pointed boot toe to make sure they were both really out of it and not merely faking.
"The cliff's right over there." De-transforming as she calls over her shoulder to Fighter, tough guy Alex's droll face then sports a wry smile as she strides back to her busted car with a frown.
"Amara." Returning to her own civilian attire, Michelle chides softly, still reeling from the attack on her, but slowly being uplifted by her cousin's first heartfelt crack in almost three weeks. But Michelle knew exactly why her pensive partner could smile again after those first hard days after the argument split that turned into weeks running away and alone, just they two.
"We'll bring them back to the girls. They'll know how to handle it." Michelle explains thoughtfully to the now male again Sayer Starr as he ties up and retrieves the pair of unconscious baddies to unceremoniously dump at Michelle's feet.
"And I don't think I thanked you properly for my rescue before, handsome champion. We've missed you." Michelle smiles sweetly, kissing Sayer's cheek in soft gratitude. This person, she knew, meant as much to Amara as her own dearest meant to her, despite it all.
"Thanks, 'Chelle." Sayer cutely blushes ever-so-slightly at her open affection.
Then he slowly begins to back away, someone's harsh words of their last encounter telling him to 'leave me alone' still haunting him wherever he went. "I—uh—guess, I'll get outta here now. Bye, 'Chelle, ummm..."
Michelle watches Sayer's eyes meekly look over to where a growling Alex was attempting to start her broken down Ferrari to no avail. As the incensed race car driver smacks the unresponsive steering wheel with two frustrated palms, she didn't even once glance up at the husband she had been separated from, with even a waft of encouragement.
"'Bye..." Sayer whispers to the wind, turning, about to dash off again at his estranged wife's indifference. He sadly concludes that it must be true what she had stated before—that she really did regret his coming here to this planet, she truly did regret his coming to her...
"Hey, Starr?"
Suddenly stopping in midstride, Sayer hears Alex's low voice call to him, just as usual, with her familiar nickname, as if nothing was amiss between them.
"Yeah...Alex?" Sayer answers tentatively, unsure how to talk to her after their weeks' long separation after she had publicly announced 'leaving' him and that it was 'over.' His dark blue eyes search the skies, desperate to cross over the distance between them. He knew, despite it all, despite her coldness and anger and his own intense resentment those first few days at her totally unnecessary cruelty of being ditched—her fierce, biting words that day still cut his heart like a knife, even after several solitary weeks full of self-recriminations and emotional distress—why he could never really leave her, even if she wanted to leave him.
Even if she really didn't love him, he would always love her—he'd always watch her back and protect her...and Michelle, too, for as long as he lived.
For you, Ally, I'll wait forever…I'll protect the one you love most…and for Rob, too.
Sayer vows silently, coming into his relationship with Alex well aware of her closer than close connection to her cousin and Sailor partner Michelle. She was a part of him, too, knowing how his once selfish brother Robin had changed his entire attitude for her. Their bond was what brought the Starlights all back here to earth, at the aqua beauty's soulful beckon, giving each of their three lonely lives such meaning now.
For no matter what heartbreak and pain and loneliness it meant for him now, this passionate Fighter would never—could never—regret for one minute coming back and discovering his Uranus' soul. Sayer Starr would always adore his golden beauty with the wind at her back and world-shaking strength in her determined eyes.
Those eyes meet his and Sayer thought he saw a small light in her deep green orbs that he was almost sure wasn't only the last rays of sunlight reflecting...
"The least you could do is find a pair of stranded ladies in the middle of nowhere a ride home. Or is that too 'gentlemanly' a task for you to bring yourself to do?" The teasing words, the sound of her voice, the look in her stunning green eyes—all gave Sayer Starr's depressed heart a skipped beat.
"Is that what it takes to be a 'gentleman'? Rough…Gotta be honest, I'm still working on that angle…" Sayer's hopeful smile was asking a million questions behind the quick-witted tease, deliriously dazed in disbelief that Alex was extending a tiny olive branch he had been praying for.
Their eyes lock as he slowly becomes sure of her, and of himself, once again, in a single gust of the enveloping wind.
"Actually, I did come in a car—a rented one. And I, uh..." He says crookedly, with red tinges growing on his cheeks. Alex removes the keys from the Ferrari's ignition and leaps over the roof of her now defunct, favorite auto to stride up to him, putting a hand on her other favorite abandoned vehicle's reddening, sleek chassis.
"Just point. Which tree did you crash into?" She softly teases his infamous driving skills with a caress to his humiliated face. She considered it pretty creepy disturbing—and devotedly sweet at the same time—for him to have been trailing her covertly at a distance all these weeks.
And Alex was more than a little impressed that somehow she never suspected him stalking—ahem, shadowing—his alienated wife after she had brutally instructed him to 'leave me alone.'
"I didn't, really! Just...almost." He smiles crookedly, brushing back the blood stained bangs from her eyes by habit.
Alex revels in his tender touch, not realizing just how much she missed it and that sweet puppy dog look in his eyes full of adoration and need for her love and approval.
These weeks have been hell without you, Ally…But all the self-tormenting uncertainty as I tracked you and Michelle, going from ritzy hotel to hotel along the coast, all the living out of fast food joint mornings and uncomfortable nights sleeping in that miniscule black rent-a-car, driving inconspicuously on your tail, will be worth it, if you really want me back…
No matter what it took to make sure she was safe, his sleep-deprived eyes and way more than five-o'clock-shadow unshaven, lovelorn young man from the stars could never abandon the woman he loved—especially when she could be in such danger—even if she ordered him to.
"You look like a mess in need of some major clean-up. Want to go home, Starr?" Alex whispers, as if the wind she was a part of heard his silent request. With a chuckled brush of his dark stubble that was forming a rather manly beard around his chin, she kisses Sayer's fingers as they continued to touch her face, as well, in awe that she was actually smiling at him again. Then, with obvious tenderness, Sayer's digits gently caress Alex's knitted back together wrist, sliced up arms and pierced side, too, unable to get enough of the fifth tactile sense of touch both longed to indulge in again, it seemed.
"If you still want me…?" Sayer whispers back, biting his lower lip as Alex answers his question, after a long look in his pleading, sunken eyes, then with a soft kiss granted to his moistly licked, anticipating lips.
"Maybe I'll always want you...After all, 'We are 'us' because my heart's right here with you,' a fine lyricist once sung to me. We'll figure this crazy world out…together." Patting at his left chest with each rhythmic word, Alex evokes the precious memory of that special Christmas gift of his personal serenade just for her which had been so compelling they were soon wed.
Maybe we can make another go of it, even if we have our differences of opinion on some subjects, Starr. I guess I wouldn't be attracted to any weakling pushover as my mate…I just hope you can stomach the hard path of a Soldier chosen for me.
…I think you might…
"Just promise to not ever call me 'Alex' again, and I might keep you." She slurs on his desiring lips her own brand of tease after making the enduring concession her stubborn mind never would've extended before she met this extraordinary fighter.
Before I caused that terrible pain in your eyes that I never want to see ever again, Starr.
"Ally…" Sayer's trembling eyes respond familiarly to Alex's more than satisfied smile that she could depend on him as she never believed a man could be trusted to be relied upon, especially after she had treated him badly. The usually talkative singer was at a loss for words, just ecstatic to be 'real friends' again, and be able to be at his Sailor U's side in the open as his song's sentiment whistles through his heart.
'The things that tie us together
No one can ever unravel our tomorrow
We'll finally meet now as we should've then
And we can truly be real friends…'
The 'I'm sorry' never had to pass between them, as long as both of the reconciled lovers knew there was indeed a forever friendship—made stronger through storm and battle and loneliness—to hold on to firmly. A forever 'us' together, through war rampaging and peacemaking, was so real now it was palpable, never again to be 'unraveled.'
Reaching for one another simultaneously, breathlessly, Sayer and Alex Starr seal their marital bargain renewed with a long, deep, ardent kiss on the side of the vacant highway, making up as they passionately make out against the guardrail.
Michelle watches from afar with mixed emotions. She was happy for Amara, of course, Sayer becoming very dear after all their ill-fated first meetings, acting like an, albeit annoying, yet true little brother to her.
But at the same time, her cousin's reunion with her Starlight Soldier made Michelle so...so very sad for herself as she overlooks the ocean, wishing it could carry her away to him, too.
Robin dearest...where are you right at this moment? My heart's song is still right beside yours, wherever you are…
'I thank Fate for you, my destiny fulfilled.
It was decided beneath the bright stars…Since before you and I were born
Break through the silence and the emptiness…The two of us will find true peace…'
She closes her eyes, letting the romance of the setting sun take her back to happy times once again when he was in it with her.
'…Because you were there with me…Because you are still here with me…'
"Woooh! Ahhh! Did you see that light show, gals?!" Four little stowaways who had cunningly attached themselves to parental looking couples and then orphaning themselves whenever the ship's crew members passed by, now look over the railing at the target city they were on their way to, over the long voyage.
"What the hell was that?!" Jun Jun always threw in a swear word when she was shocked.
"Wha—?" Cere Cere asks, annoyed, as she removes her suntanning face mask. She was using this journey to lay out as the last of the sun sets on the deck of the cruise ship she herself had insisted on stowing passage back to Japan on.
'If we have to go, we might as well go in style.' That was her motto and with a little sneakiness, which they had ample amounts of, the four girls had easily stowed away.
"Looky! Looky! Pretty lights! Palla Palla wishes Bonk-Bonk was here to see it, too!" Teenager in body, but little in mind yet, Palla Palla leans over the railing a bit too much in her excitement, but luckily, responsible Ves Ves was there to tug her little friend back by her shorts.
"You think there's trouble there already, too?" Ves Ves asks seriously to her other two companions as Cere Cere finally deems to look up, just as blinding lights off the coastal shore outside of Tokyo fade away.
"There's always trouble wherever we go." Jun Jun says sourly, though a little anxious to get off this 'boring old rocker' herself and trouble sounded pretty good at the moment to this adventurous teen.
"Uh-oh, trouble again?! I'll probably chip my new nail polish that cute porter over there gave me." Cere says with a youthful giggle and girlish wave at the poor young man.
"He gave it to you?! Where?! Which one?!" Jun Jun casts evil stares upon all good looking, marauding young men porters in the area. The poor, innocent lads received scathing glares just for one of them giving Cere a little attention. As much as they argued, Cere Cere was Jun Jun's responsibility, her cherished rival and more than that, her best friend that she'd protect with her life.
And that thought just might be put to the test, as the four friends, fresh from the wilds of the Amazon, gaze out expectantly at the country of their rebirth looming ahead...
A phone rings in the high rise apartment of another set of four girls. These four were long and far away removed from girlhood though. The youngest of which had just turned twenty-one. She and her older sisters, all, through trial and hardships and countless sibling arguments, had stuck it out together, living here in this newfound home, slowly but assuredly. They accepted this 'good' way as their true path and all traces of their past evil were gone leaving the four very normal (well, how un-weird normal can four sisters living together under the same roof be?) young women behind.
"Hello?" Catzie's scratchy voice answers the phone. She sat down with a plop, putting her over exhausted legs up on an easy chair across from the couch.
"Catzie? This is—"
"Serena? How're ya doing? Oh, oh, I mean 'Mrs. Shields.' Haven't had a chance to talk to ya since the wedding. Was that last year already? Well, babe, let me tell ya! You looked so stunning! We've been really busy these past few months, sorry for not callin' or anyth—"
A talk-your-ear-off-talkaholic on a binge of a long absence of speaking to a dear, dear friend, Catzie starts to ramble on and on in her accented voice until Serena has to stop her.
"Catz! This is really important. Is Birdie there?" Serena asks, her voice on the other line sounding very...anxious.
"Birdie? Oh my Gawd! Did something happen? Oh, Gawd, Serena, where? Was it a car crash or what?" Losing her marbles over the very thought of her sister and best friend's safety, Catzie jumps up, rushing to slap her clothes back on, running tears in her nylons without a care for her up to date fashions, flying about in concern for her sister.
CRASH!
Indeed, Birdie does have a crash accident. But not the kind Catzie supposed as she and her white haired sister slam right into each other. Catzie, in a panic, with her cell phone still in hand, rushes right out the living room door into her poor sibling.
"BIRDIE! Oh, thank Gawd!"
Serena was still trying to explain herself on the other end but was not able to get a word in edgewise as she hears Catzie's first overwhelmingly joyful, then overwhelmingly annoyed in .03 seconds voice at her on the other side of the receiver.
"SERENA! Why'd ya scare me like that?! You're a toasted chicken now! Birdie's right here! Geez! You gone and made me run my nylons and everything! Geez!"
Shaking her head, Serena sighs, handing her phone to a more take-charge Rei, who was more accustomed to speaking in between Catzie's non-communications.
"Catzie, just quit your whining! Look, we've got big business. You get your sisters together and come down to my temple right away!" Rei orders.
"Oh, hi, Rei. I'm just so tired..." She starts to whine.
"GET YOUR BUTTS DOWN HERE PRONTO, CATZIE!" Rei shouts in only true Rei fashion. She and Catzie's relationship was good enough to withstand hurricane-mouth-force gales.
"They're on their way." Rei says succinctly, hanging up before Catzie even had a chance to reply, as all the gathered Scouts gaze from Rei to the unconscious white-haired young woman lying on the bed in front of them.
It was positively strange to come face to face with your spitting image double, though over the past few months nearly every Scout has had that redoubtable pleasure.
But for an abnormal young woman with the unusual name of 'Birdie,' whose youthful eyes had seen many a strange thing would not be sent into shock over this abnormality.
"Who is she, you think?" Birdie's high pitched voice asks calmly, as detached as a scientist studying a laboratory microscope.
"We thought you might know, since she looks almost exactly like you, Birdie." Serena says to her friend as they all look down at Birdie's indeed nearly identical twin.
"No. Not at all." Birdie shakes her head, no recognition coming as her long braid sways back and forth the negative.
"Ya have to admit, she does look like you, Birdie." Catzie comments, kneeling down to get a better view.
"Maybe she's a relative or someone from the Black Moon come back from the future again or something?" Lita offers a theory.
"A twin sister you never knew about! I saw an 'Opal' show just yesterday on that! Oh, it was sooo sad!" Mina, the boob-tube freak, throws in her wasted morning watching fare.
"That's 'Oprah,' not 'Opal', Mina." Artemis sighs, endlessly correcting his protege's mixed up mangled proverbs problem. He had to endure through whatever Mina insisted on watching.
"Admit it, Artemis! You watch it, too!"
"You would know, Artemis! Lazy cat watching that sort of salacious television, at a time like this!" Haughty Luna mumbles in a superior tone of her couch potato husband under her breath, jealous in the belief that her furry guardian partner was only interested in the sordid lives of those over made up floozies on those kinds of shows.
"LUNA!" Artemis' jaw hangs in insulted pride, with a guilty married kitty look on his face.
"Well, I think we would know if our own mother had a fifth child, I think." Avery's voice dripped still with a touch of sarcasm as she gives Mina a smirky look.
"It was just a guess." Mina shrugs with a winning smile.
"And, what about him? Somehow, he seems...very familiar..." Wandering away from her three sisters' scrutiny of the 'Birdie-lookalike' in question, Prizma finds herself strangely drawn to the unconscious man on the bed on the other side of Rei's temple room.
Looking from Prizma to the man and then back down again, the Inner Scouts gathered do a double take.
"That's right, Priz! You kinda look like him! In a weird guy-girl trans kinda way." Plain-speaking Avery walks up to her forest green haired sister. Her distinctive exotic eyes and pretty features almost mirrored those of the man, although his in a more masculine way.
"You mean, he looks like me." As vain as ever, as argumentative with her rival sister as ever, Prizma purses her lips as she looks guardedly down at the handsome man.
"She looks like you, Birdie and that man does look a lot like you, Prizma. There's gotta be some connection." Rei moves between them. Her psychic senses weren't able to detect the source of this familiar quandary though.
"There IS. And, no offense, ladies," Alex's low voice and lowered eyelids nod to the four sisters with a smile on her face as she, with a freshly showered and shaven Sayer traipsing close behind her in a temple robe, enters the room. "But our latest opponents have not only an uncanny resemblance to you four, but also, as you once were then, so are they now—agents of an evil negaforce. I'm Alex Sokova. Nice to meet you." All business, Alex offers out her handshake to the four sisters, to whom she had obviously done her Sailor Scout homework on.
"I got dibs on this hot guy!" As the younger pair of the quartet of siblings challenge each other with a quick jan-ken-poi!, the more experienced, older two did not quite know what to make of this boldly honest, tall and imposing golden-haired 'man' in a stylish suit jacket and loose pair of grey slacks.
Then, just to confuse the en-gendered situation further, Sayer steps up to introduce himself, long navy blue ponytail still wet after his 'tender' wife had just given her ruggedly living man a quick dip, scrub and close shave with her sharp blade in the temple's archaic facilities. The long-haired rock star unabashedly tosses off the baggy white temple robe and pulls a tight a-shirt over his well-developed, exposed abs right in front of the group of eye-popped ladies.
"And, if you didn't recognize me already, I'm Sayer Starr of the Three Lights. It's VERY nice to meet—" As if he didn't just get himself out of the not-so-proverbial doghouse, Sayer's wolf eyes couldn't refrain from lighting up at the array of stylishly long-legged beauties.
He reaches out to greet each one of the cosmetic shop females with a handshake, but instead, he receives Alex's knowing elbow in his skin revealing ribs. "Ow..."
"So, you're a Sailor Scout, too, right?" The brains of the group and oldest sister, Prizma, addresses Alex, putting two and two together, as she was first to shake Alex's offered hand first.
Alex nods seriously as Birdie knowingly mouths to a disappointed Catzie ('He's a she.'). Ignoring the childish identity minutiae, Alex's eyes were glad to meet another woman of intellect beyond her good looks. Looking to the prone man on the bed, Alex also immediately notes the startling resemblance between he and this similarly tall, dark green haired female.
"Who do you think they are?" Prizma asks. She sensed a responsible soldier and accountable leader behind the wry smile and critical green eyes.
"That's what we brought you here to find out." Alex answers succinctly, looking her straight in the eye.
"Hey, Alex?" Avery was another bold one herself, speaking out despite the serious situation. "Is this man taken? You wouldn't believe how hard it is to find such a looker with a silky voice to boot like that these days." Slicking back her mahogany tight hairdo in a bun, Avery blatantly flirts, studying Sayer with interested eyes, not listening to a word discussed.
He gulps under her penetrating gaze that was assessing his tight physique in a-shirt and Chad's spare temple pants up and down approvingly.
"Taken?" Alex repeats, her own crooked smile meeting Sayer's alarmed, yet still curious gaze with her green eyes flashing mischievously back at him in that certain way both of their lonely souls had missed of late.
"Do you still have my rings, Starr? Or did you have to pawn them to fund your month-long covert stalking of me?" Alex dangles the biting query in Sayer's equally bitten ear right in front of their shocked audience.
"Nuh-uh. I kept those safe all the while, 'cause I was pretty sure you were gonna come back to me." Sayer responds, trying to sound arrogant as ever, though he had never been so lacking confidence in his life than this last month. He produces from his pocket his original silver band used at their shotgun marriage in the mountains, as well as the ruby-studded gold one he had bought for her afterwards to make up for the important wedding ring he had omitted then.
"I only sold what belonged to me to get some money for my solitary road trip." He admits to Alex's raised brow smirk which made some risqué insinuations at his enigmatic, sultry tone.
"Is that so? How many extra…ahem…kilometers did you put on your odometer in my absence?" Alex's experienced driver eyes appraise his 'used vehicle' status as they direct themselves downward along her never economical husband's fine lines.
"N-n-not that, Ally! I—I just meant I sold some of my instruments before I left! Sayer Starr's personal sax fetched a pretty penny! Geez! What do you think of me?!" The crimson faced Three Light stumbles over her amused, accusing stare at what seamier means of quick cash could be bought and sold on the open market as she had implied.
"Just the sax, eh?" She couldn't help but rib her 'innocent' hubby, still enjoying her ability to make him sweat. I'll have to clock some miles of my own later tonight to properly evaluate your engine wear fully...
"Yes, ladies, I suppose I've already put my brand on this side of beef. And don't let this little dogey tell you otherwise, girls." With a chuckle at his adorably proclaimed virtue, Alex sends a playful warning to Sayer. She claims from his sweaty palm the pair of rings she had harshly abandoned there almost a month ago. Then Alex meaningfully slips the original, small silver band they had been wed with back on her left hand finger while concurrently sliding the more flamboyant gold, large ruby ring in the shape of her 'Initial U', romantically meant to replace it, onto her husband's empty matching digit in the first public declaration of their marriage she finally allowed.
"Better stake my claim here before the rest of your adoring female fans come chasing after you, stud. Only to be disappointed to find an old, married man instead." Holding up his displayed with her obvious 'U' stamped, wedded ring hand for all to see, she speaks her piece plainly before the embarrassed laughs of the younger audience and sniggers of the older set.
Unashamed for anyone to know now, and making certain he would always know it, too, Alex Sokova Starr gives a possessive squeeze in front of everyone to her 'lil dogey's' tight tush afterwards, his adoring eyes glowing back at his also symbolically heart-branded initial 'U's preferred attention with nothing short of pure love.
Silently wishing for the man with similar navy blue hair whom she had loved and lost years ago to be looking at her like that again, Prizma looks down, sad for a moment. However, her melancholy eyes suddenly were caught in another's entrancing gaze...
In a soft voice, as she plucks at the special golden harp gift her thoughtful husband had brought in here for her to dabble tenderly at, Susan hums to herself a love song that her baby's father had sung to her often.
The nursery was a beautiful place—purple and lavender shades of color which brought a peaceful calm to Susan as she sits, sewing delicate little baby dresses in between playing on her angelic strained instrument.
Eight month pregnant Susan had spent many a long hour in this room that her baby would soon be part of. She wanted it to be so homey, and full of music and open light, unlike her closed, dark world spent in Time's empty doorway.
My baby...
Susan smiles, lightly touching her bulging stomach.
"And yours, Terry, my love..." She whispers aloud, wanting her unborn child to hear her happy voice speaking the child's father's name, to feel at ease and safe within her body despite Susan's very anxious soul.
What Alex said...it is my duty to protect the Princess. Yes. I swore that long, long ago. But now, my duty is to my husband as well, my partner through all Time...
Susan's dutiful mind was now more and more ruled by her heart—a heart full of love and longing for another that she had sought many lifetimes for, and now for this small life growing within her as well.
A motherly instinct was not enough to describe what Susan already felt. She wanted this child dearly after a thousand lonely years where she dared not even to dream of this fulfilling life of her fantasies.
And then there was Terry.
He only is trying to protect me and our baby. He doesn't mean anything else by it, Alex. Please understand that. I must do as he asks. I am his wife and he loves me beyond love. I can't go against his wishes, I love, respect, and trust him too much. Forgive me...
Strumming the melancholy 'Scarborough Fair,' Susan sadly gazes out the starry window at the gentle breeze blowing outside through the white roses her beloved husband had planted for her to enjoy the view. But the wind reminded her of how she wished Alex was here for her to explain it all, so this misunderstanding didn't have to stand between their relationship as soldiers and as sisters. Susan knew how hard it all had been on their family.
Yes, we are a family. My Terry has given me my dream of a family, as well.
Susan smiles wistfully. Her marriage to Terry and then Alex and Michelle's subsequent marriages to his brothers truly brought them all together as not only Outer Soldiers, but sisters at last. And sisters, Susan had found out, were precious things.
"Ohh!" Susan suddenly cries out, dropping the little lacy lavender gown to the ground.
"Susan!" Hearing her soft wail all the way across the house in his computer library room, Terry drops his research, rushing to his wife in less than ten seconds flat.
"Susan?" He asks anxiously, rushing in the door, all concern and worry written over his handsome features as he falls to his knees on the ground beneath her.
"Giselle...Giselle just kicked. That's all." Susan smiles at the joys that came with pregnancy, despite the pain at times. This pain was nothing if she had her beloved nearby.
"Where?" Terry's worried eyes ebb to a pleased smile as he kneeled before her, touching her stomach gently, while Susan moves his caressing palm over her bare pregnant tummy.
Susan giggles as baby Giselle gives a gentle kick again, to Terry-papa's delightful chuckle as he kisses Susan's forehead while running his other hand's elated, talented fingers over the strings of her harp, and then through her long hair, too.
She buries her face in his neck, nuzzling, as she murmurs apologetically, "Forgive me, but I can't help but be so happy…"
"Forgive you? My darling, why should you not be happy? I always want to make you happy." He pulls back to look her directly in the eyes.
"Because of Robin…" She strokes his cheek, and he leans into her hand, taking it and kissing it tenderly. "But still, despite it all, I'm in happy anticipation that we are about to meet our little one."
"Yes, and you should be. I find I cannot wait to hold her, but I, too, am torn at times, but so grateful to God for giving me you and Giselle. I don't know what I'd do without you, Susan." He takes both her hands in his. "You know I would give my life for you, and the baby."
"You'd better not!" She gently chides him. "We need you here with us. Always. My baby needs her wonderful, noble, beautiful father. Oh, Terry, I'm going to be a mother! And all because of you! You made everything possible for me—now you promise me you will never leave me!"
"Don't worry, my lady, I'm not going anywhere. You and I have a daughter to raise."
He and Susan share this sweet, forever moment of imagining future parenthood when the doorbell suddenly rings to interrupt.
"I'll get it!" Tara's small voice calls from another room, as she trots from her homework, opening the front door.
"Tara!" It was just starting to rain on the outskirts of the city with a cold, hard kind of rain that the chilly month of November rings in. But the young girl, wet and shaking at the front door, was not trembling just from its chill.
"Cattana? What is it?!" Tara asks, worried for her new friend from the terrified look on her face.
"Tara, please! I have to find my sister! It's a matter of life and death!" The scratchy voiced teenager pleads, her bobbing violet-indigo hair splashing raindrops on the front door.
"Tara? Who is it?" Terry comes down into the hallway from the nursery at the sound of the commotion. He sees Cattana standing outside yet, dripping wet and shaking, causing his fatherly instinct to take over.
"Come in, child. You're soaking wet." He kindly invites the wide-with-fright-eyed girl in.
"Oh, dear! You're going to become ill like that. Do come in." Susan-mama comes to her husband's side after a slow, ambling moment, welcoming with care Cattana into their home, wrapping a fresh towel around her shoulders.
"Tara! Mr. and Mrs. Starr..." Cattana looks at each concerned face imploringly. "Please take me to my sister! She's in grave danger! I didn't know who else to turn to!" Cattana says.
"Of course we'll help, Miss..." Terry reassures, looking to Tara for a name.
"Cattana." Tara says, helping her friend towel off her long curls.
"—Cattana. Where are your parents?" Terry then asks responsibly.
"Our parents are dead. My sister, Swanette, watches out for me. And now I have to watch out for her! Please! Just tell me where you have her! Queen Meta—" Cattana almost utters Metallia's evil name but suddenly remembers to hold back. "—someone important will be very angry if she doesn't come back soon."
"Where we have her? But I've never even seen your—" Tara begins to deny, looking into her friend's eyes when Cattana cuts her off.
"Yes, you do! I know it! Maybe not you in particular—Maker, Pluto, Saturn—but the other Sailor Scouts! They have her! And I've got to get her back now!" Cattana's look turns even more serious, blazing at the three now even more concerned faces.
Tara was more than a little shocked to find that her school friend was fully aware of their secret identities and the existence of the other Sailor Soldiers.
"How do you know of these things, Cattana?" Terry asks warily, as he now scrutinizes the young girl before them.
"I—I can't tell you. I shouldn't have come here!" Cattana shouts, fearful all of a sudden, seeing the error in coming to her enemies.
Yes, they are my enemies.
And coming to their home and simply asking for her captured sister's whereabouts was not smart at all.
But, Tara is always so nice to me!
Cattana suddenly turns on her heel, rushing away, flinging open the door to everyone's surprise and runs out into the hard rain, crashing right into a sturdy object directly in her path.
"There you are, Cattana. Queen Metallia has been anxious over you and your sister's untimely departure. Perhaps you're thinking of crossing sides, too, hmmm?" The dark figure's voice is low and foreboding with danger.
"You bring us to 'em, luv! Those wretched Scouts hideout and maybe we'll forgive you and your yellow-bellied sis and her dingo of a boyfriend! Don't tell these saps we're here, and we'll get you off Metallia's hook, okay, kid?" Lady Ruby's voice was unmistakable, even in the darkness and just as threatening.
Cattana hears the familiar 'zzzt' of instant teleportation and knew that the pair was gone, just as suddenly as they came.
"Cattana!" Tara's small voice could be heard rising above the rain's clatterous din. But obviously, she had not seen them as she rushes up to Cattana, while Terry holds an umbrella over both girls protectively.
"Please come back inside and don't worry, everything will be all right. We'll take you to your sister, don't worry. We're friends." Tara's honest crystal eyes break Cattana's heart as she realizes that the only way to get Swanette back into the Queen's good graces was to betray Tara's friendship.
And you're the only friend I've ever had, Tara...I'm sorry...
Cattana thinks sadly as she nods. Tara takes her hand through her slender arm, leading her back into the house.
But I have to watch out for my sister no matter who else comes along. She's most important to me.
Cattana lets the kind hands of Tara's pregnant 'Susan-mama' dry her off as Tara brings her to her room and gives her one of her own outfits and sweaters to wear.
I'm coming, Swanny...
"Very pretty..."
Prizma was startled by a pair of dark green eyes and the smooth words which accompanied them. She gasps, for there was something behind those eyes that was so disconcerting to her.
"Who are you?" Immediately, the golden haired soldier beside Prizma, who had just introduced herself as 'Alex,' speaks up first, her voice as commanding as it was demanding. The rest of the occupants of the room all look down at their now conscious guest in interest.
The man lying on the bed starts to prop himself up, but the warning look in Alex's eye told him to go slowly, no false moves. Cornered in a room full of soldiers that he knew were those dreaded Sailors, from the descriptions he had studied, Dracon sees no alternative but to obey.
And maybe smooth talk his way out of this one, like he had done so many times in the past, especially with the ladies.
"My name is Dracon, Mrs. Sta—ahem—or is it more apropos for me to call you Ms. Sokova?" Dracon was well versed in this particular Sailor Soldier's profile. He catches himself, not wanting to get on her bad side just yet. Alex's steely eyes never waver as she looks down at his cunning, lady-killer simper.
"I'll ask the questions here. Who do you work for?" Alex continues to grill the prisoner but Dracon seemed to have other plans.
"Such a lovely creature—a vision of beauty. Pray tell, what is your name, dazzling one?" Silver tongued devil Dracon was on the attack, but there was something more than just flirting—there was something different about the woman next to Uranus that he noticed. Something truly beautiful and he ponders this as he lets their matching green eyes lock.
"My name...?" Prizma says, becoming lost again in that oh-so-familiar gaze.
"Her name is Prizma and I'm Avery, her sister. It's soooooo nice to meet you." Obviously, a good-looking man wasn't that hard to find after all. Flirty Avery was always ready to step up to the plate.
"This isn't a party!" Alex huffs in frustration at the ditzy woman, giving her a shove out of the way of her interrogation.
"Who sent you after us?" Alex demands again, her eyes ice cold serious on Dracon.
"Now, you're too lovely a lady as well, to be bothered by such mundane questions, cruel angel." Dracon attempts to turn his charm on Alex, who was not buying his hogwash one bit.
"Don't try that bullcrap on me, you assh—" Alex remembers her presence amongst the younger ladies, whose eyes light up at her choice of words. She had just caught herself in time. She clears her throat. "Don't give me those 'compliments' of yours, mister. Just tell me why you're here." Alex shakes her head when she realized that this silver-tongued Dracon was also tight lipped.
"Yeah, pal! I'm the only one who can compliment my—" Sayer steps up from behind Alex, initiating a confrontation befitting his angry face.
"Shut up, Starr." Alex snaps at him, as Dracon smirks at her tough attitude towards all men apparently. Even this strange entry of one.
"Ahhh, Sailor Star Fighter. Thank you so much for this little bruise. I never did imagine a 'woman' could hit so hard." Dracon taunts him as he rubs his still hurting, practically dislocated jaw.
"You're welcome, asshole." Finishing his partner's started vulgarity at the vulgar prisoner, Sayer cocks his head sarcastically with a crooked smirk, not at all insulted by the remark intended to disparage his gender-changing alter-ego.
"Well, Dracon? You haven't answered the question. Who are you working for?" Lita nods to Alex and Sayer, walking up to join their questioning.
"What's your purpose here?" Rei demands, but again, no reply comes.
"Why did you attack Sailor Neptune?" Mina tries to break the stone wall.
"Are you from the future?" Amy asks, trying to piece together the connection with the Four Sisters.
"The future?" That question at least, seemed to garner an interest in the man. "No." He answers simply, with an incredulous air.
"You asked about Sailor Neptune." He turns an eye on Mina. "It was at the Heir's request." He answers succinctly. "The purpose...hmmm..." He ponders this one for a moment. "To play a vital role in the New Reign. Now, what else? Oh yes, who am I working for..." He rambles on, moving his quizzical finger from his chin, meeting everyone's gaze as if toying with them, until he lands with an impassive look on Serena, who had thus far, remained silent. "Do you really want to know?" He asks playfully, searching Serena's blue eyes.
"Yes! Please tell us!" She nods bravely, so full of hope to understand what was going on, particularly concerning the one he called 'the Heir.'
"I suppose it won't hurt now. Her Royal Majesty, the Queen of all Evil—Queen Metallia herself." Puffed up like a peacock, Dracon proudly announces this to them all, reveling in the fact when the younger girls, especially Serena, shrink back in horror.
But we banished her long ago! How can it be? How can this be?
"Metallia?!" As our five Inner Scouts and two cats shout in surprise, they all gasp in horror at the evil one's release from the darkness she was captured in, they thought forever when Beryl was defeated.
"Is that bad, Ally?" A vague recognition of the name of the past, spoken on his adopted home planet of Kinmoku during his youth had flickered through his mind. But Fighter could only recall the hushed looks everyone had then—the way Queen Melodia had held a frightened child Healer close to her to shelter the child from it when someone said something aloud about that name, in front of the trembling youngster that seemed so long, long ago...
"Very bad." Alex replies forebodingly. She herself had blurry memories of a battle in the distant past with the wicked Queen of all evil—
An ancient battle…an ancient loss.
"So as you know, despite your finest efforts, your measly powers cannot contend with hers." Sensing Metallia's name had struck a nerve, Dracon continues with all his bluster to rub it in. The squirrelly man saw this unexpected moment of their confusion, looking from one to another, as maybe a chance to flee out the open side window.
But what of Swanette...?
Dracon dismisses the thought and begins to move to his selfish escape, but not quick enough for Alex, who dives at his throat with a powerful clutch of strong fingers.
"Has Metallia been released yet?" Alex asks forcefully, shoving Dracon back down to the bed.
"Stop...You're...choking me..." Dracon tries to pry the iron hands from his neck.
"I asked, HAS SHE BEEN RELEASED YET?" Alex repeats angrily, not loosening her tightening grip around his throat.
"No..." Dracon finally chokes out and she thrusts him back down with a thud.
"Then we still have time." Backing away from the bed, Alex informs the shocked-at-her-abrupt-ferocity companions who look at her fearfully. All except Sayer, who understood the stakes of this battle to come very personally.
"You see, on the Moon, Metalllia couldn't be—" Artemis starts to negatively replay the past defeat of the Silver Millennium, but Alex cuts him off.
"She will be this time. She has to be." Alex cuts off the serious guardian cat firmly, her eyes darting across into the adjoining room where an again distraught Michelle lies peacefully.
Whether it be by using the wicked, envious ambitions of Beryl, Wise Man, Diamond, Pharaoh 90, Nehelenia or Galaxia, Queen of Evil Metallia must not be allowed to take over this world or manipulate the course of any other by deceitful domination ever again.
And the turncoat 'Heir' of her son, Chaos, will never take away Michelle's peace, no matter what it took for Alex to stop him.
"No, I don't think so." Suddenly, another voice enters the conversation—a high one, with a pitch that seemed to have a birdlike, singsong quality and something else, too.
Something almost frightening, as the bird-like scream erupts from her throat, deafening all those within the temple...
There behind where Birdie and Catzie were standing close to her bedside, Swanette suddenly rises as if wings were spreading, and she unexpectedly grabs the two women's necks. Her long, pointed fingernails threatened to dig into their flesh lethally.
Calculating Dracon seizes the opening his lover had supplied for him as he fires his stored up energy into a devastating sonic blast, blowing all the spectators back with a thunderous boom of sound waves, producing a horrid, piercing whine.
"AHHHHHHHHHHH!" The girls cry out, but Serena finds that everyone was shielding her nonetheless, with Sayer and Alex in front of the pack.
"Everyone, transform!" Luna and Artemis' sensitive kitty hearing had been hit hard, but Luna still manages to call out the words before she and her furry partner collapse in agony.
"Right!"
As one, Lita, Mina, Rei, Amy and Serena, nod, producing their wands and brooch.
But seeing this, Dracon continues to batter them directly with deadly sound vibrations which enhance Swanette's screech, making them all sink to their knees to the ground, covering their ears.
SHKKKKK!
A red rose zips through the small crack in the window of Rei's temple, breaking through Dracon's energy vortex, smacking him right in the head, causing him to stop his attack.
"Sound is such a beautiful thing. What would our lives be without music? Do not desecrate our ears with your foul sounds! For that, I, Tuxedo Mask, will not forgive you!"
A black tuxedo flutters into the window. Tuxedo Mask gives the girls the signal at the enemy's pause.
"Now, Sailors! Transform!"
"URANUS CRYSTAL POWER!"
"FIGHTER CRYSTAL POWER!"
"JUPITER CRYSTAL POWER!"
"MARS CRYSTAL POWER!"
"VENUS CRYSTAL POWER!"
"MERCURY CRYSTAL POWER!"
"MOON ETERNAL POWER!"
"—MAKE UP!"
As one, seven Guardians transform into their Sailor forms. The room glows, blinding with colors of reds, blues, oranges, greens, yellow and white lights.
"STAR SERIOUS LASER!"
"MERCURY ICE RHAPSODY!"
Super Sailor Mercury and Super Sailor Star Fighter aim their powers precisely at the slender hands of that Birdie lookalike. Swanette squeals back, her voice caught in her throat as she lets go of Catzie and Birdie.
"Catzie, Birdie, Prizma, Avery! Get out of here!" Rei yells, pointing a finger out towards a side door, over the din of battle as the four women, feeling useless without their own powers, do as directed, and race deeper into the temple through the door.
"URANUS SPACE SWORD BLASTER!"
"JUPITER OAK EVOLUTION!"
Even together, these two powerful Soldiers' combined energies were barely just enough to match Dracon's stored up, Metallia-endowed sound blast that rocks the entire temple with his explosion as the torrid energies collide in the middle of the meeting room…
Greetings, my Sailor Moon friends!
I hope you enjoyed this exciting Summer episode of our continuing to heat up "Sailor Moon Eternal" novel full of thrilling battles. familiar old faces, and passionate reconciliations! (Sayer sporting a sexy beard was worth the price of being separated from him for a few weeks, eh Ally? ;) At my insistence, Setsuna illustrated our handsome Three Light in a light beard! I'd love to hear your reviews of this chapter's ever-developing UranusxFighter relationship!
I want to wish you all a 'Happy Father's Day' weekend as we celebrate our first hero and true role model - our beloved Daddy, who gave Inspiration to open our imaginations long ago when we were just babes in our cradles, always believing and encouraging our dreams throughout our lives.
I thank God for you, my dearest Buddy. Love you forever.
God be with you and yours this special day for our special Dads.
Love, HarukaKou