By now, the Crystal Palace had learned how to accommodate each girl as much as possible, and, though difficult, it is a learning process for everyone. Gracie used her other senses, cane, Bump Dots, and aids to get through her day. Crystal was given a clicker to use when she wanted something. She also used her body language. Christen and Emily continued to build on what they already knew. Once Crystal had picked through the footage on her supercomputer, editing out the hours of nothing happening, she raced to alert her friends!
Running into the dining room, Crystal urgently pressed the clicker until everyone looked at her. Of course, it took Christen and Emily a minute to notice. Crystal started pointing to the den, where her supercomputer was! Crowding around to look at the screen, Crystal played the recording: In the dead of night, a monkey crept into Crystal's bedroom and crouched on top of her, seeming to cover its mouth for quite a while.
"What a cute monkey!" Alexis squealed in adoration.
"They can rip people's faces off." Holly reminded her of a case of such an event happening.
"That was a chimp. Regardless, neither should be kept as a pet." Ariel corrected.
"What the f-...?" Even if she could not hear, Christen swore when Trisah rapped Christen on the head with her rod! "OW! What the hell was that for?!"
Hastily, Trisha picked up a pad and pen and scribbled a message. Holding it up, you could make out, "For being foul-mouthed at a time like this!" Trisha's print could have been better when she needed to write things out fast. Not illegible, just messy.
"Look!" Emily yelled, pointing to the screen.
Something was coming out of Crystal's mouth as she slept! It was a glowing green, gold, and blue ball-shaped type of energy! Ariel relayed to Gracie what they were seeing.
"Is that Crystal's voice?" Chibiusa asked. Though no one knew for sure, this was their only clue.
Eager to help, Jewel got out her laptop and researched a legend called The Three Monkeys! There are statues on Earth of three monkeys sitting in a line, one covering its ears, one surrounding its eyes, and one covering its mouth. Sometimes, there is a fourth covering its genitals. THey are named Kikazaru, Mizaru, Iwazaru, and Sezaru, respectively. These animals symbolize "Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil, and do no evil." As odd as it is, this matched perfectly with what was happening!
Jewel recalled seeing one of the statues on Earth before and had asked Zoisite about it. That's when the blonde female general told her all about it. Also, Zoisite had purchased the statue for Jewel as she loved animals and still does, keeping the figure to this day! Endymion's generals, minus Jadite, as he was only interested in pleasing Queen Beryl, always bought Jewel nice things, which got her interested in learning about Earth. To her credit, Queen Beryl never minded when her generals came back with a little something like a toy, food, or an outfit for her daughter as it kept the child happy, fed, warm, and occupied. Of course, Kunzite and Zoisite were the most affectionate to their redhead princess.
Peering over the golden-eyed girl's shoulder as she does when trying to be sneaky, Christen clicked on the name Roshi when she saw it on the screen.
"Hey!" Jewel shouted in alarm, catching Ariel and Holly's attention, who dragged Christen away.
Looking over, Jewel noticed these Three/Four Monkeys served a God named Roshi, God Of Roads. Were they seriously going to have to face a God?! How could they hope to defeat a God while disabled?! Even if they were not disabled, it would be next to impossible! When Jewel showed them what she found, everyone had questions, but no one had the answers.
"Why are they attacking us? I know we said things we shouldn't have, but everybody sometimes says things in anger. I don't want to lose my bond with Holly!" Alexis clung to Holly.
"Hey, we're sisters. You'll never lose me. We'll always be together." Holly hugged Alexis tightly.
"No one shall lose anyone. We are the Neo-Super Sailor Senshi now. We've been through rough scrapes before. This is just one more obstacle we will break through. I trust the light inside all of us." Trisha promised to be there for her friends 100% of the way.
"You have our trust as well." King Endymion claimed with his angelic wife by his side.
"Going up against a God isn't going to be easy. You'll need more than love, light, friendship, and hope to beat one." This time, Beryl might be right.
"In that case, we'll just have to throw whatever s- we can at him and see what sticks!" Christen forced out this sentence in a snappish manner. Yet she knew Beryl was not mocking them.
Used to the dark-haired girl's nasty language, Beryl just shrugged, not like she knew exactly how to battle a God either. That night, the girls tried their best to sleep soundly and almost managed it until they heard an odd sound in Ariel's room. Running in, they found Ariel in her Neo-Super Sailor Jupiter form and her Electric Dragon protecting her from a monkey!
As is usual with normal monkeys, this creature is fast and agile, but so is Jupiter's dragon. Seeming to understand he could not attack Ariel himself, the monkey started throwing things at her, hoping to knock the brunette out, which would get rid of the dragon! "Everyone, I need room!" Jupiter ducked and dodged what she could, but she knew it was only a matter of time until someone got hit.
So, they all booked it out of the room except one: Chibiusa hung back as she was unwilling to have Jupiter lose her senses! Chibiusa transformed and unleashed her attack combo with Jupiter's daughter.
"Eternal Electric Dragon!" Neo-Eternal Sailor Moon's Eternal Tiare power enabled Jupiter's dragon to use a beam of kaleidoscope colors from its mouth!
Tragically, the monkey could evade the attack and land on the beautiful Princess of Storms from the ceiling! Neo-Eternal Sailor Moon saw a burst of blue light through the dust and heard Ariel scream! The next thing the Moon Princess saw was the monkey flipping out the window and running off into the night!
"Ariel?!" Neo-Eternal Sailor Moon wandered through the dust clouds to get to her friend.
What awaited her was not a pretty sight! While Ariel could still see, hear, and speak just fine, she could not move and lay helplessly on the floor! Chibiusa hugged Ariel, crying, and screamed for aid. Chibiusa had never imagined seeing Ariel unable to help herself, and it killed her to witness one of their strongest warriors fall. As if the amber-eyed girl's worst nightmare came true, she is reduced to a wheelchair!
Usually, Ariel would still attempt to do what she could for herself, but she could not DO anything that did not involve speech, sight, or hearing. In some ways, Ariel was suffering the worst as, even if she could see and hear, what good if she could not get what she saw or turn to see what she was hearing?
"It's like she's turning into a mannequin..." Trisha whispered to her friends and teammates. Emily was signing for Christen.
"There is a rare congenital disability called Living Mannequin Syndrome. Let's just be thankful Ariel doesn't have that, as most people who have it don't live past their 20s." Star informed with a bit of a heated tone at Trisha's poor choice of words.
"Well, the fourth monkey is "DO no evil," so...yeah." Holly thought this was a reasonable enough explanation.
"I think "Do no evil" means...something else." Jewel felt she did not need to go further into any explicit details.
"It means don't fu-" Christen began to shout when Shadow lunged and covered her mouth.
"We know what it means!" Shadow snarled.
This dark girl could look just as intimidating as her father when she felt she should be. This was probably why Christen shut up, even if she could not hear what Shadow said.
"Well, we know what we're up against, but how do we find out where Roshi is?" Ivy asked.
"Roshi is supposed to appear at a crossroads," Jewel reported what she remembered reading.
"So, we just go to EVERY crossroad on Earth and pray he shows up!" Holly joked.
"I'm sure it's not that simple, Holly." Alexis softly scolded.
"Or we could just, you know, follow one of the monkeys?" Always the logical one, Trisha made everyone else feel silly.
"B-B-But they only show up to steal someone's sense. Do we have to wait until one attacks us? What if I'm next?!" Alexis whimpered, tears forming in her bright, sapphire blue eyes.
"I won't let them touch you!" Holly hugged Alexis securely.
"Holly...we can't stop them. You saw what happened to Ariel." Shadow did not like frightening Alexis, but she did have a point.
"How are we even going to track one of those monkeys? We don't have any tracking attacks." Dawn tried to turn the subject back to the info they did have.
"I don't know how well this will work, but it's worth a shot. Christen and Alexis must combine attacks; it will soak and singe the monkey. Afterward, we can follow the trail of wet and burnt fur?" Gracie suggested.
After she understood the plan, Christen agreed. Even though she had not tried it yet, Alexis promised to try as hard as possible to get along with Christen. Now, they had a plan of action, but how far will that take them?