Hell Awaits, Part 3 - The Hardest Choice
Abadon's revelation left no one standing unshaken.
It simply didn't enter the Inner Guardians' heads that they needed to slay the four New Kings, killed and revived for being the men they chose as theirs... How could that be? Was that why Abadon left on his own volition, to play such a cruel move upon them - And worse, one that still helps the Lord of Light in the long run?
"What's the matter?" provoked the possessed man. "Cats got your tongue?"
"Abadon... Fengari... Why are you doing this?" pleaded Sailor Moon to her future son. No answer came.
So many thoughts raced about within the Guardian's minds that they remained immobile, without knowing what to do. So did the New Kings - As it turned out, they still retained a portion of their own free will, and were taken aback at the revelation just as much as the Sailor Guardians did.
Ryo wanted so much to go to Ami, tell her everything he felt he needed to say. But the only thing that came out of his mouth were the words of the shape he would take. "Uhh... Bun... Bun... Boo..."
For her part, Sailor Mercury could not bear to see and hear her beloved struggling to keep his own humanity and mind intact, paralyzed and shaking her legs and lips in anxiety.
The long-haired King drew his sword from the sheath and opened a bitter grin. "Dying... It was the best thing that ever happened to me... If you can give me this pleasure once more, Miss Rei... I will be grateful forever."
"What... What in all hells are you saying!?" Sailor Mars incredulously asked back.
"You guys... You didn't come back to life just to die again! We won't accept it!" Sailor Jupiter cried out.
"There has to be a way to turn you back to normal! THERE HAS TO!" Sailor Venus shouted desperately.
"I don't want to hurt you, Makoto... Or anybody else, for that matter," lamented Shinozaki, "but if it is necessary for the greater good of all that exists, then please, do it."
"We were fated to fight each other, were we not?" Daisuke commented as he drew forth a deck of cards. "It seems my prediction was either wrong all along, or just not entirely correct..."
In the meantime, Sailor Saturn still kept open the portal she managed to open towards the Hades. With Astar beside her to aid with some of his abundant vital energy, she could hold the interdimensional gate open without feeling her own energy sapping away. But she, as well as the other Outer Guardians, were at a loss for words and action just as much as their fellow heroines.
"What... Do we do now?" Sailor Neptune asked.
"Enter the portal, quickly," ordered the Angel. "Saturn goes last."
"And where do you think you are going?" sounded a mocking male voice before any of them could oblige Astar's request. Soon after, the dark servant Fréamund leaped towards the Outer Guardians.
"Oh no!" Sailor Pluto cried out.
"You won't get away with this!" the God of Freedom affirmed as he readied a fulminating attack with his left hand.
"LOOK OUT!"
A banging sound and a flash soon followed, with the light of the foe's blasting attacks blinding the witnesses for few seconds. When the light dissipated, the Outer Guardians were nowhere to be seen, and the portal to the Underworld was no more. Astar stood perfectly still with his left arm pointed towards a fallen Fréamund.
"Ugh... That damned Angel, he... He managed to... Send the Demigoddesses through the gate..." the dark servant spoke as he got up with some difficulty. "But will you look at that... It came with a price!"
The Sailor Guardians, the New Kings, as well as Tuxedo Mask, the wise cats and even Abadon drove their gazes towards where Astar still stood, as if paralyzed. His entire body also showed an unusual grey hue.
"Astar... ASTAR!" Sailor Moon desperately called for her past father as she ran toward him.
Fréamund laughed mightily as he finally stood to his feet. "He cannot hear you, Princess... He has been turned to stone!"
Everyone present gasped in surprise. Sailor Moon herself confirmed it when she touched the Angel's petrified body, feeling a stony and cold surface instead of flesh and clothing. And soon after, an infernal portal opened beneath his body, dragging him to the darkness below in such speed that the leader of the Sailor Guardians could barely act to push him back to the surface. All Sailor Moon could do was fall on her knees and drop some impotent tears over where the Angel once stood.
"Where the hell did you take him?" enquired Tuxedo Mask.
"Back to Hell, of course," he proudly answered. "Lucifer wants him to suffer eternally for this setback. And besides... You would think we would let your sure ticket to victory tag along with you? Fat chance."
With the Outer Guardians gone and Astar captured, how would they enter the Underworld? And what of the New Kings, were they really supposed to engage in a combat to death against them? Could things get any worse for the Guardians? Such were the questions that zoomed through the minds of the heroes as they stood without knowing what to do.
"Now if you excuse me, I have something else to deal with." Having said this, Fréamund leaped once more, this time to where Abadon stood. The possessed man stepped back, anticipating what was about to befall him. Not that it helped him: the dark servant of Hell landed right behind him and stabbed his upper back with an obsidian dagger he hid behind his purple robes.
Instinctively, everyone cried for him. "FENGARI!"
"Stand back, all of you. I'm dealing with a traitor here. Just as I thought... You resurrected these scum to aid the Sailor Guardians, did you not?"
Shivering and arching in pain, the possessed man remained in silence as he did when the heroines questioned him. The revelation further added to the heroes' confused state.
"You stay away from him! SMOKING BOMBER!" Fengari's future father called for his own power, which managed to sweep Fréamund back a few feet. Immediately, the Inner Guardians drew forth their sacred weapons to fend off with the servant from Hell. Sailor Moon and the New Kings went to Fengari's aid, and saw the full-face mask of his Abadon form morph back into the carnival nose mask he usually wore as the future Tuxedo Mask.
"I'm... I'm sorry, everyone..." Fengari told his companions as Daisuke helped him get back on his feet. "What Fréamund just said... Is true..."
"Should have known," the dark servant spoke once more. "You never quite lost your mind after Belial stabbed and healed you, huh? In fact... You predicted it all! Even the fact he would use the Shadow Gems to close this wound of yours. Your composition would make you retain the Gems, heal yourself, revive the New Kings, and add to their numbers against Lucifer and the Legions of Hell."
"Fengari, if that's true..." Shinozaki questioned, "then why did you make us fight the Guardians?"
"You still have... Darkness in your heart... And only they can heal it... With their powers..." the future son of Usagi and Mamoru answered.
"Good to know!" Fréamund affirmed from afar. He lifted his hand, and after a snap of his fingers, the New Kings were covered by some sort of visible shadow. Their screams of agony could still be audible from beneath the dark and viscous wrapping.
The Guardians turned their heads and cried for their respective lovers and Kings as they underwent a metamorphosis of their own, not unlike what Fengari went through. But when the shadows dissipated, none of the four men appeared any different... Until an eerie red glow glimmered from their eyes.
"What have you done now?" Luna queried.
"The darkness within their hearts has taken over them," Fréamund casually answered. "The condition to heal the New Kings will still stand. Defeat them in combat, and their Shadow Gems will materialize for their fully-healed return. However, those Gems are the only things that separate the Young Lord between the realms of the living and the dead. Make your choice, children... It's either the future monarch, or the New Kings who shall live..."
"This is just..." Artemis couldn't find any words to describe Fréamund's cruelty. The others were no less taken aback with seething rage.
"Passionate Seal!" Instinctively, Sailor Moon attacked the God of Freedom with her new attack. A flash of fresh light that was swifter than the blink of an eye followed, and a beam of holy thunder skewered Fréamund's body with extreme violence, solidifying itself into the shape of a cross.
"Well... This is awkward." The villain's body still stood up, despite being impaled through the chest. He coughed up some blood and continued talking. "This will not do a thing to change the outcome, you know. It won't even kill me outright, just send my soul to Hell sooner than if I just transported myself, body and all. This way I can help out the Legions in containing the advances of the Demigoddesses."
One final insult added to their injured willpower.
The possessed New Kings simply got up and ran away to different places. The heroines had no other choice but to follow them, each going after their respective lover.
"Heh, heh... You thought you'd have it easy, didn't you? See you in Hell..." With this last mockery, Fréamund's body finally perished and burned away.
"Don't... Don't worry about me..." Fengari requested.
"NO!" Sailor Moon affirmed, tears streaming down her face. "How can you say that? You are... You will be my son..." She wrapped Fengari in an embrace as she said this. "Seiya... Please, don't die..."
Tuxedo Mask couldn't help but join them in that tensely tender moment. A bright aura emanated from both of them, closing his stabbing wound and momentarily making their future son feel better.
"I... I feel so good like this..." Fengari spoke while smiling ever so slyly. "I'm sorry you had to know who I am like this, Mother... Please don't leave me! I don't... I don't want to die!"
"You won't," Luna guaranteed. "There is always a way... Is that not right?"
"I... I trust there is," Fengari acknowledged.
"But there is also the issue with Astar and the entry to the Underworld," Artemis reminded.
"I'm sure the Outer Guardians will find a way to open another portal," Fengari managed to speak once more. "Don't concern yourselves with it just yet... For now, they can advance just fine through the Underworld. Right now... The Inner Guardians should focus on finding the New Kings, and bringing them back to normal."
"They went after the boys," remembered Tuxedo Mask, "I hope they can be healed before it's too late..."
"Soon the people will appear in the streets," reminded Luna. "We can't stay here like this."
"Let's bring Fengari to my apartment," suggested Tuxedo Mask. "Usagi and I can take care of him with our life force. I guess this is all we can do for him right now."
Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask propped up Fengari carefully and helped him walk towards Mamoru's apartment. The heroine remained silent the entire time, uncertain as to how things turned out to be in such a short span of time. Astar was captured to suffer beneath Lucifer's domain once more, and while the Outer Guardians managed to enter the Hades, there was no assurance they could open a portal from the inside out.
And then there was the difficult choice that Fréamund made them undergo. Was there really a way to rescue Fengari and the New Kings at the same time? All she could wish was for that to be a bluff, a psychological way to undermine their efforts. But that, too, was in the realm of uncertainty. All she knew was that they were not any closer to the end of that grueling war against the forces of the Fallen Angel.
I have to be strong, as I have always been. Astar, Fengari, everyone... I know I can save you all! I have to...
(xx)
Hidden and from afar, two mysterious female figures watched the unfolding of the tense event. Both were covered from head to toe, wearing full iron masks and leaving only their long waist-level hair flowing.
"Brother..." Spoke the first one in a pained tone. "What I feared would happen ended up truly happening. We need to do something!"
"Be not so hasty, Small Lady" spoke the second figure. "The New Kings must be purified at the hands of the Inner Guardians. And the Outers have managed to enter the Hades already. Not all is lost."
"But I cannot stay here and see Seiya suffer like this..."
"When the right time comes, we shall appear and help them directly. For now, we can only stay behind and contain the advances of the Legions."
The first one just lowered her head and sighed. "...Alright. I hope it's not too late to save any of them. The World and the future depend on us."
Finally! Got around to update this fic. I kept this one short because I wanted so much to go ahead with it, but couldn't bother adding more stuff.
My eternal gratitude to all of you who pass by to read this, either as anonymous or favs/followers.
Un gracias muy especial a mi querida amiga litakino1987 que siempre está ahí aportando con reviews y charlas.
Reviews and criticisms are always welcome. Just keep it civil.
Next chapter: Mercury and Mars catch up to their respective lovers, and the Outer Guardians trod through the realm of the dead.
Greetings from the Hospitaller Knight.