AN: So, yeah, seven months is... a while. To be fair, 2020 was a mess, and my creative energy has been depressingly low. Still, I really am trying to get this finished. Please bear with me.
Disclaimer: Not and never will be mine.
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Jadeite found his prince unconscious among the rose bushes of his private gardens, sprawled artlessly in the dirt and entirely unresponsive.
"I'm going to have to call Kunzite to move him," he told Mars, who had been searching with him. "I don't want everyone to see him like this and carrying him physically might exacerbate his injuries."
Blinking, the fiery Senshi turned to face him entirely. "He's not hurt, Jadeite."
"Firebrand, you just burned his veins getting whatever that was out of him. I think he's pretty hurt."
She laid a hand on his arm. "He isn't hurt. Look at him."
Endymion was certainly unconscious, but once Jadeite focused on him, he started to realize that Mars was right. The pain that had been lining his features before and even during Challenge seemed to have evaporated, and none of the wounds from the match were visible. Aside from his lack of response and astounding pallor, he appeared to be in perfect health.
"I don't understand." He looked at his intended. "He's totally unaware and looks like a corpse, but I can't see anything wrong with him."
Mars' violet eyes searched his cerulean for a long beat before she huffed. "What do they teach children on this planet? Did any of you even know he was the heir?"
"Of course I know he's the heir? His parents don't have any other children."
"Not to the throne," she said impatiently. "The crystal. He just got hit with the entirety of the Earth's magic at once while in such a state that he would have to use it immediately, and, based on your blank look, without being at all prepared."
"The crystal? The Golden Crystal? What does that have to do with anything?"
"I would have to call Mercury to be certain, but that flash of light when he woke up was clear enough. He inherited his crystal today. It healed him, but it takes a lot of energy to use something like that even under the best of circumstances, so he'll sleep until he's recharged."
"You knew he would win Challenge?"
"Your Challenge is a ridiculous antiquated tradition. Anyone with a lick of power could tell he would take the Golden Crystal; it's been obvious since the day he was born. Instead you fools did nothing to prepare him for it." She studied the prince's prone form. "Serenity wants to come, but she can't. She's sending Mercury to help him."
"Why can't she?"
"They're only courting as far as the people know, and just recently. It would be highly improper. Mercury and I, since we're already engaged to Terrans, don't have that problem."
"Will Mercury be able to fix him?"
Mars sighed. "This isn't something that can be fixed, Jadeite. He will recover in his own time as his energy replenishes."
"Why didn't Hyperion – why didn't any of you tell us about this?"
"Jade, planetary crystals are an intensely private affair. We wouldn't presume to know about the Golden Crystal and its traditions any more than you would presume to know about the Mars Crystal. I can tell you that I first took it in hand when I was barely walking. I slept in its light for more than a week before claiming it. I learned to carry more and more power so that its energy wouldn't overwhelm me when my time came. The process was the focus of my life for years. None of us would ever have thought you would keep him ignorant of what he would be facing when the crystal called."
"But he'll be okay?" he pressed, looking again at his motionless prince.
She drifted closer to him, kneeling at his side and pressing her hand to the side of his throat. "His life force is strong. He'll wake when he is ready."
As though a switch had been thrown, Jadeite's face went from concern to a death-mask. "Good. Stay with him while I deal with the woman."
Mars half-rose, not wanting to leave the prince unattended, but concerned with the way he'd changed so abruptly. "Jadeite, what are you going to do?"
Rather than respond, he turned on his heel and strode away.
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His hurried steps took him straight to the cell he'd thrown Beryl into. Unwilling to be challenged, he had even rendered himself invisible in order to approach her without anyone else's interference. He knew without asking that the other generals, to say nothing of the king or queen, would not approve of what he intended.
He discarded the illusion in the same instant that he reached the bars, appearing to have simply stepped from the air in front of her. Beryl scrambled back, terrified, even as she took in the bitter cold of his rage.
"Who put you up to this?" he demanded. His tone brooked no argument, so icy and sharp that she almost expected his words to draw blood.
Beryl didn't dare prevaricate or lie. She had heard that the generals were powerful, even dangerous, but until that moment she hadn't truly believed it. In Endymion's presence, they were always gentle and protective. Away from him, knowing fully well that she had hurt him, Jadeite was not pretending any longer.
"M-my father gave me the potion," she stammered. "It – it wasn't supposed to be like that. I swear!"
Jadeite bared his teeth. "What was it supposed to do?"
For the sake of her own skin, she hesitated. She knew how well he was likely to take the truth, and had no wish to suffer the punishment he clearly ached to bestow.
In a flash, the general was in the cell with her, one gloved hand around her throat. The ice cracked, and pure heat seemed to pour from him. "You will tell me everything you know right this moment."
The burn pierced her body, even her mind. As it did, Beryl found herself spilling every detail of the plan – how they would arrange for Endymion to be caught in a compromising position with her, half mad with lust, forcing him to marry her, how she suspected that her father would find a way to be rid of the generals in order to remove the prince despite how she wanted him and install himself as regent as soon as she bore a child.
Jadeite dropped her to the ground, and she stared in horror as vicious slashing wounds seemed to carve themselves into his arms only to be utterly ignored. Her fingers rose to her throat, feeling a burn in the shape of his hand there.
"What did you do to me?" she gasped.
"Not nearly enough. Not yet."
She looked up at him again, terrified. The general loomed over her.
"Your father will die for his role in this. Treason and attempted regicide both carry a death sentence. You don't wish for my prince's death, and for that you gain what little mercy I am capable of. You will live." Beryl gasped out a thanks, trembling in relief, only for her blood to run cold as he continued. "Regardless of whether you wished for Endymion to live, you laid hands on him with the intent to cause harm. You poisoned him when he had done nothing to you, and what you did nearly killed him. His blood burned in his veins, and he walked into battle despite that. Had it been someone else facing him, the prince would have been killed in Challenge. Your punishment will never be enough, but I'll take some satisfaction nonetheless.
"You will feel every bit of the pain he felt. Every bit of his helpless fear. Unfortunately for you, you don't share his healing powers or the sympathy of someone who possesses them. Now, I am not entirely cruel. The pain will be less for as long as you keep your thoughts from him, and your distance, but it will always be there. Should you attempt to see him, to lay hands on him, it will become ever so much worse."
"Y-you can't. Please, there must be a way for me to earn forgiveness!"
"I am not capable of forgiveness," he snarled. He snapped his fingers, and she collapsed as his punishment took hold. "Not for this, not for what you did to him. Your pain will follow you for the rest of time, until I no longer belong to him, and you may rest assured that such a thing will not come to pass."
"Jadeite!" Mars gasped from the door.
He barely spared his intended a look. "Be gone from this place," he ordered, and he watched with unconcealed hate as Beryl disappeared. Still he ignored his own injuries as further gashes spiraled from his arms to his torso.
Mars hurried to his side, pressing a suddenly gloved palm to the largest of the bloody wounds. "What did you do?!" she demanded, applying pressure in the hopes of stopping the bleeding. "Your power –"
"– Did what I needed it to do," he finished grimly.
"I knew you could create illusions and influence minds," she said, "but I had no idea you could truly change things. Jade. Jade, it's dangerous. You can't."
"Obviously I can. As for the price, I can handle it."
"That's not what I meant!" she snapped. "Jadeite, what you just did, that power is what stains your path with blood. Your fate just shifted somehow."
Zoisite appeared behind them, starting to say something but stopping the instant he took in his best friend's state. "Jadeite! What happened?! Did she attack you somehow?" He immediately ran up alongside Mars to join her in assessing Jadeite's wounds.
"Never mind me," he said dismissively. "What of Endymion?"
"Mercury is with him," Zoisite answered as he focused on dragging the torn skin back together. The injuries almost seemed to fight him in a way he'd never before encountered, but he managed. "She's running scans, but so far it looks promising."
"Did either of you manage to identify what she put in that wine?"
Mars answered instead. "It really was not meant to be harmful, it seems. Mercury tells me that it was a basic lust charm, the sort Venusians sell to people of other worlds. It is not particularly potent, nor has anyone recorded such a response to it in the past."
"Then why did it have such an adverse effect on Endymion?"
Zoisite looked up from the last cut as it smoothed into tan skin. "Because it is Venusian." He glanced at Mars before continuing. "We do not publicize this fact, but Endymion is outright incapable of ingesting non-Terran substances while being completely immune to anything of this world. We had no issues while he was off-world simply because so much of the foodstuffs used in the Alliance were simply adapted from what is native here. It has allowed us to catch assassination attempts in the past, simply because no one knew poisons and the like would not be able to affect him. Potions and medicines made on the other planets are rather more risky as we do not know how much of it is not native to Earth."
"If you already knew he could not handle non-Terran creations, why did this come as such a surprise, then? Surely he must have encountered such a thing in the past for you to become aware of this particular ability."
"What he has encountered before was simply foreign. This potion was meant to subvert his will, even if it was not meant to be in a harmful way, and his power rejected it far more strongly than we have had reason to anticipate."
"I need to see him," Jadeite said abruptly, already heading for the door.
Mars' hand snapped out and roughly dragged him back. "You will do no such thing. You just expended quite a bit of power yourself, and you are positively reeking with angry energy. It would do Prince Endymion no good to be exposed to that sort of aura right now. You are going to rest and get control of yourself. Mercury and Lord Zoisite will see to the prince."
"Firebrand –"
"I was not," she hissed, "asking. You will do precisely as I said or you will be the next one lying unconscious."
Jadeite blinked down at his tiny fiancée, bemused. "You wouldn't do anything to me."
"Do you really want to test that theory?"
Studying her face, he hesitated. He wanted, very badly, to see Endymion resting peacefully with his own eyes. He hoped it would soothe the beast raging to hunt down Beryl and any other conspirators and rend them limb from limb. Still, he could see both fear and worry in her narrowed eyes, and it reminded him that she had said something about his fate changing before Zoisite's arrival had distracted them.
Jadeite forced himself to take a deep breath before turning to face the younger general. "Please watch him and let me know if anything changes."
"Of course," Zoisite agreed uncertainly. He made no move to follow as Mars all but dragged Jadeite up to his chambers.
They were barely through the door when she abruptly spun into his arms and clutched him to her so fiercely he felt his ribs creak. His breath escaped him in a huff and he barely managed to grunt out, "Mars?"
"You should not have done that," she said into his jacket.
It took some work, but he managed to draw her back enough to see her face. "What did you mean before, about changing my destiny?"
"I still cannot see what will happen, but your fate burned red as your blood was drawn." She abruptly pulled herself free of the hands on her shoulders, expression suddenly uncracking calm. "I must return to the temple. I need to meditate."
"Firebrand, no." He reached for her, but she flinched away. "Don't hide from me, Mars. Not now, not after choosing."
She lifted her burning violet gaze. "What you just did has changed our future, Jadeite. I need to know why. I have to find out how to stop the destruction to come."
"Destruction?"
"I warned you a long time ago that you had two paths. This, somehow, is the start of that path. Damn it, Jade, I warned you. This is what I always feared. Death, destruction, and pain – not just yours, but all of ours."
"I did what I had to do."
"You didn't," she countered. "You could have done something differently. You could have clung to the fate you said you wanted. I need to find what exactly changed things. I have – You can never use that power. The Alliance would kill you for it."
"Why? I've been using this power my whole life."
Mars shook her head, frustrated. "No. You persuaded, you created illusions, but this power let you alter the flow of fate itself. You changed her mind and body to suit your will, and what happened today is going to come back to haunt us all."
"I won't let this change us," he said, reaching for her.
Struggling against her fear, the Martian princess allowed it. "That's just it, Jadeite. It will. This is going to change everything."
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AN: As always, please read and review. Comments feed the creative beast and help it get going again. Till next time!