Molly wasn't in the least bit jealous of the strong friendship that had sprung up between Amy and Serena. Do they see it, she wondered, do they see how close they are? She glanced sideways at Amy, whose superhero costume was again hidden. Both of them are so strong, Molly thought. I feel so treasured to be their friend.
"There's the bus stop," Serena said. "It shouldn't be long."
Amy sneezed in reply.
A white convertible was passing them. It slowed, then pulled to the side of the road. Molly looked up. In one startled moment her eyes locked on the driver. Handsome. An older man, with shoulder-length hair, and deep, dark eyes.
"Your friend doesn't look so good," the man spoke, his voice filled with warm concern. "Here, you'd better take a cab. On me.
" A cab was already pulling up, sensing a fare. Money was transferred, and the man was back in his convertible in a moment. "Oh, thank you, sir!" Molly couldn't meet his eyes.
"It's the right thing to do. Isn't it?" For a moment the man seemed uncertain. Then he shot them a smile, and pulled smoothly away from the curb.
Molly sat back against the cab's upholstery. She was tired, drained, but she'd felt that way before. She'd snap back. Her friends were by her side.
And a pair of deep, dark eyes were on her mind.
SEARCH FOR THE MOON PRINCESS
Episode Nine : Mercury Falling
It was cold at the shrine. It had been cold on the bus. Serena shivered and stamped and hated the unseasonable weather. She wondered why Raye didn't put some heat on. It was one thing being traditional and all, but this was silly!
"Serena! Could you pay attention?"
"Aw, Raye!" She was so mean!
Amy politely waited for them to stop fighting. "This ib my analysis," she said. She wiped her nose again. "The attacks are stebbing up, and spreading out from the central Adabu-Juuban. The barriers between worlds must be breaking down."
"It is as I feared," Luna said gravely. The cat hopped up on the table, and turned slowly to regard them each in turn. "They are using their stolen energy to open up the dimensional passage. When they have enough, the barrier will crumble entirely and we will be part of the Negaverse."
"Then we stop 'em," Raye declared. Her dark eyes flashed. In her red and white Miko garb she might have been an ancient samurai. She reached below the low table and brought up a sword in the old style. "I'm ready," she said grimly.
This is so cool, Serena thought. I feel like part of a real super-team. "Do we all get swords?" she asked.
"I wouldn't trust you with a salad fork!"
"Weapons aren't the answer." Amy tried to be reasonable. "We can't fight these things one-on-one. We have to concentrate on finding the Moon Princess!"
"So Luna says," Raye snapped back. "I'm not letting monsters run loose in my neighborhood, and I'm not taking all my advice from a cat!"
"So who are those two ravens of yours supposed to be," Amy jibed, "Hugin and Munin?"
Raye looked blankly at her.
"Hugin and Munin. They report to Odin." The others still looked blank. "Norse Mythology. We've had this guest lecturer in from Norway." Amy trailed off.
"Well, what about radios?" Serena had stopped following a while back. "I mean, shouldn't we have something so we can contact each other?"
Luna turned. "That's the most constructive thing I've ever heard from you," she said. "Certainly you need radios. Just give me a moment and..."
"And that's another thing," Raye cut in. "Why is Serena here? Sure, we need Luna; she's the only one who really knows about this Moon Kingdom stuff. But Serena doesn't know how to fight, and she doesn't have any powers -- she can't even make a fog." The last was rather pointed.
"What!" Amy gasped. "Serena's been in this thing from the start! She..."
"That's all right, Amy." Serena's eyes were already filled with tears. But she didn't wail. She stood, and finished quietly, "I understand. I'll be outside if anyone needs me."
Serena walked from the impromptu council of war. She left her friends sitting about the low wooden table, and walked out into bare shrine grounds as chill as if it were already winter.
"That was cruel, and un-called for, Raye." Amy was truly angry. Angry enough that her voice did not rise, but bit out measured words.
Raye's eyes flashed. "This is war, and hurt feelings are nothing. You guys have been treating this like a game," she continued. "Now, put some cold steel to these Negaverse creeps and see if they continue to give us trouble!"
"We've been lucky," Amy tried to explain. "And they've been holding back. I'm not sure why. I can tell by the patterns."
"You can predict where they are going to be next? Great; we can set up an ambush and get them for sure!"
"I'm trying to explain that they are too tough for us!" Amy cried.
"Well, I don't agree." Raye stood, then. She held the sheathed sword down, along one pleat of her robes. "You're not running this thing, Amy. You go ahead and do whatever it is you have to."
"Raye. Please. We need each other, Raye."
A few minutes later Amy left, walking slowly. She hardly spoke as she and Serena rode the bus away from Sendai Hill and the Hikawa Shrine.
"So, Darien. You've got something on your mind. I mean, more than usual."
Andrew had always been direct, Darien thought. Probably how he managed to make friends with me, back when we were in Junior High together. I've always been a little too reserved.
Andrew leaned on the counter, looked at him in his friendly open way. They were almost alone in the place -- it was too early yet for the school crowd. "I think I've got it," he told Darien. "It's girl trouble."
Darien nodded shortly. There was no hope Andrew would leave it at that, though.
"You still got that dream girl of yours?"
Darien looked up. "I never..." He hadn't mentioned his dreams to anyone.
Andrew grinned. "Lucky guess. You're the type to have a dream girl, Darien. A hapless romantic, that's what you are."
Darien hated the way Andrew could fluster him like this. Worse, it was probably good for him. "Romantic," he rolled his eyes. "I bumped into another one of those recently. This blond clutz, wandering around in some sort of dreamy haze."
"So you've met Serena now," Andrew grinned.
"How do you know who it was?" Darien demanded.
"Easy, now." Andrew held up a hand. "Serena's in here most school days, with a bunch of her friends. In fact, they were in here last weekend when you were here. And I could see the way they were checking you out."
Darien sighed, exasperated.
"I think it's kinda cute," Andrew said. "And they're good people. You could do a lot worse than Serena, there."
"She is way much too young for me," Darien said, a little too sharply. He didn't like how strongly he had reacted to the girl. Well, she had practically thrown herself in his arms. So tender, and so trusting. He wrenched his thoughts away again. She was a child, a clumsy child! With stupid hair!
"Hey, what about all those princes and princesses getting betrothed as children?" Andrew continued his teasing.
"I'm not royalty," Darien laughed shortly.
Andrew raised an eyebrow. "You so sure? You said you never learned much about your parents."
Darien's thoughts went flying back again to his dream girl. The Moon Princess. He wasn't sure how he knew her title. She was involved, somehow, in his blackouts.
He sighed. Andrew didn't say anything, but his look of concern showed he had noticed Darien's change of mood.
He'd had another blackout. At the Shinto Shrine on Sendai Hill. Came to in his apartment well after midnight, sweaty and bruised. His arm still hurt. He had a vague memory -- more like a nightmare -- of a barren landscape the color of dried blood, and a laughing monster with paper-white skin. And the Moon Princess was in there somewhere. Darien had the strange sense he had been protecting her.
He also had the disturbing sense that he was hiding from himself. He liked his orderly life, completing high school while living off the interest on his trust fund. He sensed that if he really wanted to understand his blackouts -- if he was willing to face the truth inside himself -- he would.
"Darien? You okay?"
The school bells had sounded and the young people were beginning to show up. Darien wondered, with more than a little ambivalence, if Serena would be among them. It was time to do something, time to deal with his demons. "I'm doing fine," he told Andrew.
Maybe it was even true.
"I am the Princess Mercury. This is my fight. It was my fight thousands of years ago, when the Moon Kingdom fell."
Saying those brave words didn't help much. Amy felt cold, and lonely. Even lonelier than she had been months ago. Before Serena, and Molly, and the rest of her new friends. Before she knew what it was like to have such friends.
"But Raye is that much right. I won't put Serena in danger." It made logical sense to her, but it felt so wrong. She needed the strength of companionship. Even as Sailor Mercury, she needed the other Sailor Scouts. The others that had always been there for her, and for the one they had all loved and protected -- the Moon Princess.
"When did I know that?" Amy wondered. "Another memory slipping out? I wish there was more! I wish I could really know what and who I was, back in the Moon Kingdom!"
It was getting late, and she wasn't sure she could explain that to her mom. She had enough trouble that night they fought Jadeite and saved those two buses full of passengers. Amy had already transformed, feeling stronger and more confident in her Sailor Mercury personae. She wasn't sure she could explain the costume, either, should someone see her.
Two girls had almost died. One of them a Crossroads student, the other from that private school Raye went to. Both honors students, both intelligent and strong in math. Both found frozen nearly solid.
Amy had worked out the patterns in her database and was now, methodically, hunting the thing's lair. But who would she turn to when she found it? Who did she know that she could tell?
Or when it found her. Amy was coldly certain she knew the pattern behind these latest attacks. The thing she sought was, itself, hunting Amy.
The lift wasn't part of the building under construction; it was just a rig of open steel and cable to move workers to the upper floors. It clattered and creaked as it rose. Amy stood silently, watching the darkened city opening out in front of her as she climbed higher and higher into the skeleton of steel. A cold breeze blew through the open cage, stirring her short hair and the bows on her Sailor Scout uniform.
Amy arrived at the top floor and shut down the lift. The bare floor, rough plywood, seemed to shiver with the height of the raw steel frame, and the cold wind blew unheeded across it. She could see half of Tokyo spread out in lights.
The Sailor of Mercury walked forward, boot heels falling softly on the flooring. There were stacks of construction materials, a compressor, a heavy tool cart on wheels....
And a huge figure with pale blue skin, blond hair and beard, in furs and armor with a great horned helmet, waiting solemnly for her.
It spoke. "So this is the champion Earth sends against me? A female?"
Mercury hated that hearty, bullying tone. She clenched her fists, but said nothing. That stupid speech was fine for Sailor V, but it wasn't going to help her here. So what was this thing, anyway? It looked like something out of Norse mythology.
"I am Vandreskakaoerkhmmlkr!" The giant laughed at her, not even bothering to move his hands from the cross guard of his monstrous sword.
"Yup, gotta be Norse with a name like that!" Mercury muttered. Just once, do you think we could fight something with an ordinary Japanese name? She raised her arms in front of her. "MERCURY BUBBLES...BLAST!"
The chill fog spread out quickly. Now, Mercury thought, can I get out of here without him hearing me?
The frost giant laughed again, a deep booming laugh. The laugh seemed everywhere in the fog, on all sides of her. Mercury shook her head. "Wouldn't you think I could see through my own fog? I need some kind of goggles or something."
She felt her way carefully. Her foot touched open air. Mercury twisted in mid-air and threw herself back towards the safety of the floor. She might be tough in her Mercury personae, but she wasn't that tough. Not to survive a thirty-story fall!
The frost giant laughed again, seeming to understand exactly what had happened, and taunting her.
Mercury got to her feet. She was almost getting angry. As the fog cleared she faced the Norse giant with a glare.
He sneered at her. "I, Vandreskakaoerkhmmlkr, am done with waiting! With my sword and magic helmet..."
"Magic helmet?"
"...magic helmet, I will complete the first of my tasks. Let the Princess Mercury sleep until the fimblewinter comes and all Midgard sleeps with her in everlasting cold!"
Blue flames licked about the horned helmet, then shot towards Mercury. In a moment she was surrounded by a ring of blue-white fire. It was cold, searing cold. Mercury fell to her knees as the warmth was sucked from her body. She could feel her energy, her life itself draining from her.
"You can not escape from the ring of fire. It will follow you everywhere, remain about you. Surrender, child."
Mercury fell over on her side. Her eyes were closing. She did the only thing left to her.
She transformed.
Amy sniffed as she stood, shakily. The magic fire was linked to her Sailor Mercury form. Vandreskakaoerkhmmlkr wouldn't be able to use it again. She had to act before he realized that.
Amy leapt. She ran right at the giant, and took a long leap into the air, to kick hard at his chest, maybe knock him over, maybe even hurt him if she was lucky....
The sword slashed upwards, catching her across the legs and flinging her outwards. Amy slid across the rough floorboards almost to the edge of the thirty-story drop-off.
There was a taste of metal in her mouth, and the air hummed. The sword had been turned flat, but it had broken both her legs. The world tilted about Amy. In that instant she no longer had hopes and dreams, her future as a doctor, the romances to come. She had only minutes more of life, minutes to be filled with nothing but another crashing pain, then the long fall into the dark canyon below.
There was a surprising gentleness in the giant's booming voice. "Life ends, child. All that lives, dies. The gods themselves live only to die in battle, to fail their world and fall."
Fear was swallowing her. It had never been like this before, not even when she faced Jadeite. But Amy struggled against it anyway. She reached for words, for understanding, as if logic might turn aside the inexorable.
"That's the Norse philosophy, isn't it? All ends, and not even heroes can win. But you left something important out."
"Be quiet, woman! Accept your fate!"
Amy struggled up on one elbow. Then a little further. She knew she was in shock, and she knew just how much her broken legs were going to hurt in a minute or two. Sometimes it just didn't pay to have a doctor for a parent.
"You'd like me to do that," she said. "Surrender, throw myself at your mercy." She bit her lip, and then she said it. "I'm not going to. You can kill me, but you can never defeat me. I'll die with a smile on my lips, and steal your victory from you."
Vandreskakaoerkhmmlkr studied her with a new look; a measure of respect. "I shall mock you no more," he said solemnly. He raised the great sword. "Laugh for me, now, and we will laugh together in the face of fate!"
So much for delaying tactics, Amy thought. As if those few minutes she bought would bring a rescuer. She drew in breath, opened her mouth for the last laugh she would ever have...
In a crash of sound the sword flew from the giant's hand.
"Tuxedo Mask!" Amy cried.
It wasn't. Detective Yamamura stepped out of hiding and jacked the action on his riot gun again. He shot, rolled quickly to one side, shot again. The giant was still off-balance; he lunged towards where Yamamura had been, turned, caught another blast and staggered again.
Yamamura kept moving and shooting, keeping the giant off-balance and giving him no time to react. Vandreskakaoerkhmmlkr was beginning to understand, though. His eyes glimmered in rage. He stopped, turned to face the riot gun, grimaced into the next blast...
And his rear foot touched air.
Amy lunged. She knew it was going to hurt. She was in motion before the pain caught up with her. One shove that felt like it was sending flaming spikes through her legs, and the heavy tool cart was in motion. It struck the wind milling frost giant, and he fell into the open lift shaft.
Yamamura listened for the impact thirty stories below. Then he fired two more times. Metal screeched and parted and the lift cage dropped from sight, accelerating, heading like a pile-driver towards the fallen giant.
"What was that thing, Mighty Thor?" the detective gasped, hands braced on his knees as he sagged in fatigue.
"Well, he did seem kinda upset!" Amy joked. Then the pain hit her again and she had to clench her teeth against it.
"I'm not sure even that finished it. Watch out; this is going to hurt." Kenjiro Yamamura picked Amy up, and cradled her in his arms like a child to carry her to the other lift.
He was right. The pain came like a wave and the world went black. Amy held on to a shred of consciousness, noticing only when she was moved, when the detective's car went over a bump, when doors opened and the lights of a hospital were about her.
Two things had become very, very clear. The Negaverse had taken the offensive. And Sailor Mercury was out of the fight.
NEXT --
It's been a quiet week at the Shinto shrine -- if you think that, you don't know Raye! Stay tuned for the first episode of the Raye saga, as our hot-tempered Shinto Priestess takes up the fight...!