Author's Note: I'd like to apologize for the delay with getting this chapter up. It needed a little extra work before it was ready to go.
Disclaimer: I do not own Sailor Moon, nor do I own the works of H.P. Lovecraft or Robert W. Chambers.
Chapter 17: The Queen in Silver
Hastur's body trembled with what seemed like fury at the arrival of Khepri and the others. "Elder Gods! You...shall...all...DIE!"
Khepri stepped forward and pointed a finger at the King in Yellow. "Hastur! You presence has violated the order of our universe! For this, we shall make you pay!"
Hastur's armored left hand clenched into a fist at his side. "Your order! Not mine! Mine is the one true order!"
"It's useless to talk to him," Saturn told Khepri. "This thing is no different than Tsathoggua. There's only one way to deal with a creature like him!"
Khepri nodded. "Let's take him out!"
As Khepri charged towards Hastur with Saturn at her side, she drew the rod hanging from her hip and the scarab from her belt and attached them together, causing the back of the scarab to open.
Khepri pressed the top button three times, causing an electronic voice to sound. "SUNRISE SABER!"
A blade of gold light extended from the head of the scarab as Khepri swung it at Hastur. Hastur parried the attack with his own sword, but at the same time Saturn came around and slashed at the King in Yellow from behind with her glaive. Hastur turned around and slashed at Saturn, only for her to jump back at the last second and avoid the attack. Khepri took this opening to slash her blade of light into Hastur's back, cutting a wide hole in the back of his tattered yellow mantel.
"Sailor Saturn and Khepri seem to be doing quite well," Zoisite observed.
Mercury nodded. "Their attacks are well-coordinated. They might just be able to beat Hastur."
"You're wrong," Kunzite told them. "They're fighting well, yes. But they're hardly doing any damage to that fiend."
Venus nodded. "Before the rest of you got here, the four of us were hitting Hastur just as hard and weren't getting anywhere."
"Then maybe it's time to bring out the big guns," Jupiter decided.
With those words, Jupiter brought her hand towards her waist as if she was drawing a sword, and Mjollnir materialized in her hand with a shimmering gold light. Before the others could ask what she was doing, Jupiter began to charge towards Hastur.
"Oh crap!" Nephrite exclaimed. "Zoisite! Put up a barrier around the King and Queen at once!"
Without question, Zoisite nodded and rushed over to Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask along with Mercury, and stabbed his sword into the floor. Geoforce Barrier!"
A greenish dome of hexagonal facets formed around Zoisite, Mercury, Tuxedo Mask, Sailor Moon, Kunzite and Venus. At the same time, Sailor Eir flew over to Sailor Freyja's side and raised a barrier of pink light in front of them both. Meanwhile Jupiter continued her charge towards Hastur and jumped into the air. Saturn and Khepri both saw Jupiter leaping towards Hastur and immediately fell back.
Saturn began to spin her glaive in front of herself, causing rings like those of her mother planet to appear from the ends of the weapon. "Absolute Silence Wall!"
At the same time, Khepri crossed her arms in front of herself. "Eternal Ba Shield!"
A large transparent scarab made of gold light appeared in front of Khepri. Meanwhile, Jupiter raised her hammer high as she prepared to strike Hastur.
"Jupiter Nordic Thunder Crash!" Jupiter called out.
The head of the hammer struck the top of Hastur's crowned skull. A massive bolt of green lighting shot a hole through the ceiling of the throne room and struck the King in Yellow, creating a massive explosion with a blinding flash. The resulting shockwave blew off the entire ceiling and also hurled Jupiter away. The shockwave also shattered the barriers Khepri, Saturn, Eir and Zoisite had put up as though they were made of cheap glass. Everyone in the throne room besides Hastur had been knocked off their feet.
When the light finally cleared, Sailor Moon and the others slowly started to get up. Nephrite quickly rushed over to Jupiter and helped her to her feet. Jupiter coughed a little as she held her right arm, while Mjollnir was still clutched in her right hand.
"You okay?" Nephrite asked.
Jupiter nodded. "Yeah. Still haven't worked out the kinks, I guess."
"What the hell was that!?" Venus exclaimed.
Brunhilde put her hands on her hips. "Sigrun, why didn't you tell any of us that Sailor Jupiter was able to wield Thor's Hammer?"
"Oopsie! I knew I forgot something," Sigrun responded as she smiled and held the back of her head.
Freyja smirked. "So I was right about Sailor Jupiter being compatible with Mjollnir. And it's given us all an opening. Look!"
The others looked to where Freyja was pointing and saw that Hastur seemed to be in a daze. The King in Yellow had dropped his sword and a large crack had formed down the middle of his pallid mask.
"To think that abomination would still be standing after taking such a blow," Gunnr remarked.
"Lady Freyja's right though. This has given us a big opportunity to finish Hastur once and for all!" Brunhilde pointed out. "Let's hit him with all we've got!"
Khepri put her hand out. "Dearest, let's do it!"
Saturn nodded and placed her hand on Khepri's. The scarab on Khepri's belt began to glow, as did Saturn's brooch. With a flash of golden light, the large gun-shaped cannon the couple had used to obliterate the Conqueror Worm materialized in the air before them. Saturn placed her glaive in the open clamps on the top of the weapon.
The clamps closed around the glaive's handle and an electronic voice sounded from the weapon. "SUN RIZER CANNON!"
Khepri and Saturn both took hold of the weapon and aimed it right at Hastur. Together they pulled the trigger. "Night's End Requiem!"
A massive beam of gold light fired from the cannon's barrel. At the same time, all of the Sailor Guardians along with Tuxedo Mask and the Shitennou fired off their own attacks at the unspeakable masked king. The barrage resulted in a blinding explosion of light that filled the throne room. Before the light cleared though, a sound like the wind howling filled the room, and a surge of black wind formed around Hastur and radiated outward, repelling the attacks while also blowing the entire ceiling off the throne room. The heroes were knocked off their feet and Saturn and Khepri's cannon vanished like mist, leaving Saturn's glaive to clatter onto the floor.
When the heroes got up, they found that more cracks had formed in Hastur's mask, but the king was still standing. Black winds were swirling around the King in Yellow, and his pitch-black eyes glared at the heroes through the holes of his mask as he snarled at them.
"You've gotta be kidding me!" Uranus exclaimed. "After all that, all we did was piss him off?"
"You shall all DIE!" Hastur snapped. "Die and become denizens of my castle!" He pointed his sword at Venus. "You, harlot! You shall be the first!"
Venus became paralyzed with fear as she saw the black winds Hastur was giving off start to swirl around the blade of his sword. What happened next happened in a matter of seconds. As Kunzite attempted to shove Venus out of the way and take the attack himself, Sailor Moon charged in front of them both while the crescent moon on her forehead began to shine with a golden light. Hastur fired a swirling razor-sharp blast of wind from his sword, only for it to be repelled by a wall of ethereal silver light. When the attack ended and Venus and Kunzite opened their eyes to see what had happened, they saw that Sailor Moon's hair was now glowing silver.
"What in heaven's name?" Kunzite asked.
"What's happened to Sailor Moon?" Artemis asked.
"I've seen this before," Luna spoke. "This is the state Sailor Moon entered when Tsathoggua swallowed her in Paris!"
Sailor Moon's eyes were shining with a sapphire light, and her face showed an expression of supreme clam. Very slowly she began to walk towards Hastur. Snarling, Hastur slashed his sword through the air twice, sending blades of black wind at Sailor Moon. The future queen easily knocked both blades away with her staff and continued to approach.
"What's with her?" Jupiter asked. "It's like she's sleepwalking?"
"If she is, I feel it ill-advised to try and wake her up," Eir told her as she scanned the scene with her computerized goggles. "Even though Sailor Moon seems to be in some sort of trance, her power output has greatly increased."
"In other words shrimp, you're saying that waking Sailor Moon up from whatever trace she's in might be a bad idea," Brunhilde deduced.
Eir nodded. "All we can do right now is watch."
Hastur charged at Sailor Moon and swung his sword at her head, only for Sailor Moon to parry the attack. The king slashed at her again and again, only for Sailor Moon to easily and swiftly parry each swing.
"Such incredible speed!" Zoisite declared. "It's almost as though Sailor Moon can read Hastur's moves."
Mercury nodded as she watched the battle and analyzed it with her own computerized goggles. "But if we're right, I don't think Sailor Moon is even conscious of what she's doing. She seems to be fighting on pure instinct."
"You mean she's become like some sort of autonomous fighting robot?" Jadeite asked.
"More or less. One thing's for sure though. The power Sailor Moon is giving off is off the charts. I've never seen the Silver Crystal give off this level of power before."
After parrying several more of Hastur's sword attacks, Sailor Moon blasted the king in the chest with a ray of silver light. Hastur growled and let out a horrid shriek that caused everyone but Sailor Moon to cover their ears. When the shriek ended, the air became filled with cries, moans and mad laughter. The heroes began to make out several shapes in the dark night sky, and saw legions of humanoid figures were flying towards them from all around.
"What are those things?" Pluto asked.
"Every single one of Hastur's remaining brides," Freyja answered. "He's summoned them!"
As Hastur's legion of undead Sailor Guardian brides closed in on them, Hastur became completely shrouded in a black twister that expanded outward and enveloped Sailor Moon. Thick yellow tentacles began to emerge from the sides of the tornado.
"What's happening now?" Neptune asked. "What's Hastur doing?"
"He's taken on his true form," Gunnr answered. "It's hidden inside the twister! Those who gaze upon Hastur in his true form are driven irreparably insane."
"But Sailor Moon's inside that twister!" Mars realized.
Brunhilde nodded. "Which means she's probably looking Hastur right in however many eyes he actually has."
Sailor Moon was just barely conscious of what was happening around her. To her the world was nothing more than some sort of waking dream. She was at least aware that she had been trapped inside some sort of twister made of winds so black that they completely blocked out any sight of what was beyond them. Sailor Moon also realized there was something floating high above her inside the twister. The thing was a writing mass of yellow tentacles.
At the core of this mass between the tentacles Sailor Moon could make out numerous eyes like pitch-black stars as well as several mouths that opened and closed at seemingly random intervals. Just how many eyes and mouths the creature had, Sailor Moon could only guess. In her trance-like state though, the silver haired warrior dwelled on that question for barely even a second. Nor did she gaze too long at the creature, for on a subconscious level she knew that looking upon such an abomination for too long would be hazardous to her mental health.
The yellow thing above Sailor Moon suddenly thrust several of its tentacles down at her. Sailor Moon used her staff to knock the tentacles away, parrying each attack with lightning fast speed. The creature then let out a deep angry groan with every single one of its mouths.
'This ends now,' Sailor Moon thought as she raised her staff up towards the creature.
A silver light began to shine from the head of Sailor Moon's staff.
Suddenly there was an explosion of blinding silver light that blew the twister apart and enveloped the surrounding area. When the light faded, Tuxedo Mask and the others all discovered they were standing under the sky on Earth, in the middle of the ruins of some exploded building. They also saw thousands of Sailor Crystals floating all around them, glowing in various colors. The heroes soon found Sailor Moon on the carpeted floor, unconscious and back in her normal state.
Tuxedo Mask ran to his unconscious wife. "Usako!"
Venus, Kunzite, Freyja, Luna, Mercury and Zoisite all followed as Tuxedo Mask picked Sailor Moon off the ground.
Mercury scanned Sailor Moon with her goggles while also taking her pulse. "She seems to be fine, at least physically. I think whatever power she used caused her to pass out."
"The same thing happened after she blew apart Tsathoggua," Luna recalled.
Brunhilde crossed her arms. "Even if she's okay physically, her mind is probably destroyed from gazing at Hastur's true form."
"Not necessarily," Eir interjected. "From what we know of Sailor Moon's battle with Tsathoggua, she had no memory of destroying Tsathoggua when she woke up at that time. It's likely she won't remember gazing on Hastur's true form either."
"Still, what the hell caused her to go through that crazy power-up in the first place?" Venus asked.
"It's unclear at this time. We'll just have to study the matter more."
"If Sailor Moon's okay, I'd like to know where we are now," Jupiter spoke. "And what's with all these Sailor Crystals floating around us?"
"From the looks of things, we're back on the property of the old theater in Whistler's Cove," Gunnr answered.
"If we are, how'd it get blown up?" Sigrun answered.
"Likely as a result of Sailor Moon's attack," Eir theorized. "This place had become a portal to Carcosa after all. The dimensional barrier between Carcosa and here was probably just weak enough for the explosion from Sailor Moon's final attack to destroy the building."
"And the crystals?" Uranus asked.
Freyja smiled. "They're the remains of Hastur's brides. Sailor Moon's attack must have also purified them, just like when she purified the crystals of the brides who had attacked our base before."
"So to sum it up, Sailor Moon not only blew apart Hastur and purified his undead brides, she also transported all of us and the Sailor Crystals back to Earth as well?" Jadeite asked.
"Seems to be the case," Nephrite answered. "What I want to know is what we're going to do with all of these Sailor Crystals?"
Khepri sighed and rubbed the back of her head. "Give me a minute."
The armored hero stepped forward and chanted the same spell she had used on the Sailor Crystals of the brides who had attacked the mansion. When the spell was completed, each of the Sailor Crystals became encased in a colorful scarab that flew off towards the sky. The heroes watched as the crystals became like sparkling stars against the light of the setting sun.
By this time, an older man in a sheriff's uniform approached the heroes. "What in blazes is going on here!?"
"Uh-oh," Uranus spoke. "I think we might be in a little trouble."
"What did you do to our theater? This place was one of our oldest landmarks! And why are you all wearing those funny costumes!? This ain't no sci-fi or comic book convention!"
Freyja smiled at the old sheriff. "Forgive us, sir. But I'm afraid we must depart."
After Freyja tapped the butt of her staff against the floor of the ruined theater, the Sailor Guardians and their comrades became enveloped in a blinding silver light that forced the sheriff to cover his eyes. When the light faded, the heroes were gone.
After gazing at the ruins in amazement for a few moments, the sheriff turned and walked away as he shook his head. "That's it, I'm retiring. I can let my wet behind the ears deputy handle this shit."
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