|
|
Gaea
Venus waited until Mars escorted the young blonde away before turning to face her lover. "Make sure she doesn't go wandering around. There's something about that child that ... bothers me. I don't want the children seeing her."
Uranus nodded. "Understood. But what about her powers?"
Venus smiled at the taller woman as she wrapped her arms around her waist. "I'm sure you can convince her to not use them, at least until Mars can get the wards in place. A nice little line about Cronos coming back to finish the job will be sure to scare her back into her shell."
"And here I thought you actually liked her," Uranus replied, returning the embrace.
"She reminds me of ... I'd rather she not be here any longer than she has to be." Venus hugged the taller woman, then motioned for her to follow Mars. Once she was gone, she turned to Jupiter. "Elara ... find those men that were with her and bring them to me. I want to know everything Cronos took from her."
Jupiter nodded, vanishing from the palace in a flash of lightning. A small gasp behind the blonde made Venus spin on the spot. "Serenede! What are you doing here? I specifically told you and the others to stay away."
A young-looking blonde stepped out of the shadows, looking very nervous. "I was just coming to ... find you, mother. Edra is ..."
Venus forced herself to calm down and walked over to her daughter. "It's okay, child. We just had business to take care of that you and your siblings don't need to worry about. Now, what is this about Edra?"
Serenede looked a little unsure of herself. Even after three centuries of living with the woman in front of her, she was still uncertain of how the older woman would react to certain things. "Edra says that ... she thinks there's another ... another child of Aphrodite here."
Sailor Venus found herself avoiding her friends for the rest of the afternoon after Aevor's visit. She knew the images disturbed them and if that mad woman had one of the kids ... The blonde shuddered at the thought of a deranged woman face to face with a pissed-off Shi. 'At least the world hasn't blown up yet,' she thought morosely, looking out over the city.
The roof of the house they were staying in was flat and afforded a perfect view of the crystal palace off in the distance. Even after weeks in this strange dimension, though, she had yet to see a single neighbor. The general populace of this world seemed to only exist in the masses that served as targets for the Dark Kingdom.
An icy wind blew over the city and the blonde turned. The sky was already darkening as night approached, but above where Tokyo Tower should be, it was as black as ink. The wind blew a familiar stench in her direction and she was immediately on her feet. "Saturn! Fighter! Hunter! They're attacking!"
Sailor StarHunter, Kaish Yaten, 'twin' sister to Kou Yaten, Guardian of Princess Kakyuu, mother of Xavier and Devii Yaten ... was not graceful. Having had her StarSeed stolen at a young age, the gray-haired woman had been forced into a life as Galaxia's slave. Choosing not to use her Senshi powers against her own friends and her son, Kaish refused to take female form. But instead of being killed outright, as she had feared, the gray-haired warrior had been imprisoned in the Zero Star.
So much of her life was spent in confinement that she no longer possessed the grace that had aided her sister on Earth. So, when she heard the cry from Sailor Venus, she jumped up, jarring the chair she had been sitting in, against a table. The small crystal display that had been on the table, was sent crashing to the floor.
StarHealer sighed, looking up from where she was working on a similar device. "I just fixed that one."
"You should know better than to leave them by her." Zoisite glanced up from where he had been resting on one of the couches. "But they're not attacking ... they're breaking free."
"A full-out invasion?" Hunter asked, grabbing her communicator. "Should we wake Taiki and 'Tomi?"
"No! It's not an invasion! or an attack! They're ..." Zoisite swayed on the couch before two sets of arms grabbed him.
Healer sighed, laying the young blonde back down. "You'd better go. No matter what's going on, Venus may need you." She watched her sister leave, then sat beside the boy. "What did you mean, breaking free?"
Zoisite struggled to stay awake. "The others ... are coming."
A woman in a fuku the color of blood stared at the new arrivals curiously. They reeked of the Dark Kingdom, but there was no demon blood this time. There were no Youma jumping out of shadows to fight her. There were no people here to kill. Cronos smiled.
"Well, it's about time you showed up. Do you have any idea how long I've been waiting for someone to break that damned seal?"
Nephlite looked at the older woman curiously. "What?"
Cronos smiled. "Mars' seal. The one that bound the demons to obey only her blood. Which of you did it? Which of you carries the blood of Mars?"
"Blood of ... who?" Jadeite glanced between his companion and the strange green-haired woman. The teenager he was holding started groaning and he shifted his attention to her. "Mi-ko, are you okay?"
Mi-ko leaned against the person holding her upright and waited for the world to stop spinning. "If I ever let Kageshirou talk me into taking a shuttle ride with him again, shoot me."
Jadeite frowned as the gray-haired girl's knees finally gave out. He helped her to sit, then made her look at him. "You'll be okay, Mi-ko. It just takes a minute to pass."
Nephlite frowned at his companions, moving to stand between them and Cronos. "I am the one the demons obeyed, but I know no Mars. I am Nephlite, servant to- ... servant to no one."
Cronos smiled. "Good answer." She turned to the young girl on the floor as she turned a sickly shade of green. She mumbled a quick spell, immediately dispelling the after-effects of the portal. "She'll be fine. But you had better move quickly. An arrival like that is bound to draw attention."
Mercury came running into the room, several soldiers on her heels. "Venus! There's been another portal! No monsters yet, but a lot of dark energy! More than any of the others!"
Venus turned from her daughter to the blue-haired woman. "Tell Uranus to stay with the girl. The rest of you go! I don't want these monsters killing anymore of my people!" She then turned back to Serenede. "Tell Edra to keep searching and to let me know as soon as she finds this other woman."
Serenede nodded, leaving the Meeting Room the same way she had entered. 'What did mother mean by a girl? And how could there be another like her? Edra's the only one.' As the blonde woman stepped into the Temple, her eyes were immediately drawn to the pale figure seated among the pillows. "Edra ..."
"Did you tell her?" Edra frowned when the older woman nodded. "I do not understand. How can there be another?"
"I don't know. What's important is that mother Venus wants you to find her."
Edra nodded, turning among the pillows until she faced the golden statue. "What if I can't find her? What if I'm wrong? Mother, what will she do?"
Serenede knelt behind her daughter and grabbed her hands. "You're not wrong and you will find her. The Goddesses will help you."
StarHunter knelt next to the blackened ground and frowned. "No blood this time. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing."
"They never used blood in our world. Maybe they finally got enough energy to open the portals other ways," Saturn replied.
"No, they weren't attacking long enough. It would take months to build up the energy Beryl would need. They only started attacking a few days before we arrived." Sailor V fingered a small tree that had been caught in the energy blast and frowned. She had only agreed to leave the house after using an almost forgotten disguise power to once more assume the guise of the fictional warrior. "This is more like ... soot."
StarFighter frowned. "Soot? But there wasn't a fire, was there?"
"The kid said they were breaking free, that it wasn't an attack." Hunter ran her fingers over the grass, frowning at the total absence of anything but darkness. "They didn't arrive here. We're leaving tracks in the soot, but they're the only ones. They arrived ... somewhere else."
"Hunter, can you-"
"SUPREME THUNDER!"
The four Senshi from Earth scattered as lightning struck the ground where they had been. Saturn was the first to recover and quickly raised her Glaive. "SILENCE WALL!"
The green-clad Senshi frowned slightly. "Kiviuq? But she had no child." She motioned several armed soldiers to surround the four warriors. "Who are you?"
StarHunter placed herself in front of Sailor V. Even in the disguise, the blonde was a dead ringer for this planet's ruler. And if what Aevor said was true ... "We are warriors from the planet Kinmoku. We are not here to fight you. We are looking for-"
"Kinmoku? StarFighter, is that you?" A blue-haired woman stepped out from behind Jupiter and smiled slightly when she saw the black-haired Senshi. She then glanced at the gray-haired woman. "Healer, you've ... changed."
StarFighter quickly glanced at the others, then moved to stand closer to Saturn. "Mercury. We're here on another rescue mission."
"I know." Mercury motioned for the soldiers to stand down, but did not order them to move. "All you have to do is step away from the imposters and you can continue on your way."
"Imposters?" Saturn tightened her grip on her Glaive, forcing herself to remember that this wasn't Ami-chan ... no matter how much she may look like her.
"Imposters, are we?" Sailor V stepped out from behind StarHunter as the illusion faded. Venus tightened her grip on the crystal sword now in her hand and smirked slightly at the look on the blue-haired woman's face.
Jupiter tensed, glancing back over her shoulder toward the palace. "Venus," she replied, turning back to face the blonde. "How did you ..."
Mercury smirked at the brunette. "She isn't our Venus. Nor is the other one our Kiviuq, though they are eerily similar." She stepped closer to the barrier to get a better look at the Senshi. "And she isn't our Healer, but this is our Fighter."
StarFighter tried to stay calm as the blue-haired woman got closer. "Not exactly. We're not from this ... dimension." She flinched slightly as Mercury's visor appeared without the woman in blue lifting a finger. 'Ami-chan would love to be able to do that, I'm sure.'
"Merc?"
"She's telling the truth." Mercury smiled slightly as she looked at each of the Senshi in turn. Her smile faded as she looked at Venus. "Damn ... you're a virtual facsimile."
Venus smirked. "Guess there's no need to mess with perfection, no matter what dimension you're in."
Jupiter chuckled slightly. "She's definitely Venus."
StarHunter frowned, glancing up to the laughing brunette. "So, does this mean we can finish our search?"
"No need," Mercury replied, banishing the visor. She waved the soldiers away and smiled at StarFighter. "Your daughter is safe. She's at the palace."
"What of her sister? Or of Healer's daughter? Are they there as well?"
Jupiter frowned. "There's a third child?" She mumbled a few curses in a language the dimensional travellers didn't know as she walked over to the group. "Shi is safe at the palace. She said her sister ... Miyo? ... was missing. We didn't know there was a third one, but that could be because of what Cronos did."
"Cronos?" Saturn frowned. The barrier was still holding between them and the other Senshi. She was still haunted by the image of her 'other self' chained to a statue and left for demons.
"Yeah ... Although, if you are from another dimension, you won't know about her." Jupiter sighed, running one hand through her short brown hair. There was a scar running from her right ear down her neck, disappearing underneath the collar of her fuku. She smiled sadly when she saw Saturn staring at her. "Never trust a reality-bender around glass objects."
StarFighter glanced between the two women now in front of her. These women were nothing like Aevor had led them to believe. They were almost like the friends they had left behind, but there was an undeniable aura of power surrounding both of them that was far greater than anything her friends had ever wielded. "What did this ... Cronos ... do to my daughter?"
Jupiter's smile faded as she let her hair fall back into place. "Cronos ... used some kind of ... spell to ... She has this tendency to ... alter people. She makes them think what she wants them to think, see what she wants them to see. I think she intended to do that with your daughter, but ... something went wrong. Shi's okay, she's just ..."
Mercury placed a hand on her friend's arm. "Shi is younger than she was when we first brought her to the palace."
"Younger? Is that even possible?" StarHunter asked, frowning.
Venus sighed. "It's possible," she replied. She placed a hand on Saturn's shoulder and squeezed gently. The purple Senshi reluctantly lowered her Glaive, banishing the barrier between the groups. "Is Shi okay?"
"As far as we can tell, but we've never been around her before," Mercury replied. She glanced at Saturn and frowned. "No, you're not Kiviuq at all. The powers are ... similar, but not quite the same."
"I am Sailor Saturn. In our dimension, Kiviuq is a moon of Saturn."
"Here Saturn is the moon," Jupiter replied. She glanced over at the gray-haired woman. "And you're not Healer, but you said it was Healer's child ..."
"I am StarHunter, Healer is my sister. It is my niece that is missing."
Mercury nodded slightly, frowning down at the soot at the group's feet. "I know you four didn't do this. Was there any sign of the ones that did?"
Venus shook her head, moving back to where she had been examining the tree. "No. We figure they appeared somewhere else and this was just a channeling point for the extra energy."
"Mercury."
It took the blue-haired woman a moment to realize that the voice had come from the communicator, rather than the blonde in front of her. "Yes?"
Saturn glanced over at the blue-haired woman as she seemed to be talking to someone the others couldn't hear. "Ami-chan would go geek over the toys she's got."
"So would Miyo," StarFighter replied. She noticed Jupiter walking past them to stand next to the blonde and examine the soot. The former singer was too busy watching for the soldiers to come back to pay either Senshi much attention. He knew that neither Saturn nor Venus dared relax in front of them. There were too many inconsistencies with the story Aevor had told them and the women in front of them. Either they were playing 'nice' ... or Aevor had lied. He placed a hand on the gray-haired woman's arm. "Hunter, contact your sister. Ask her to check on Maker. Red was running a high fever before we left."
StarHunter frowned slightly, but grabbed her communicator. She knew, even as she sent the message that it was a coded signal to the others, but she didn't understand what StarFighter hoped to accomplish by telling the others to sweep the house.
Mercury finished her conversation, then glanced over at the others. "Jupi, the boss lady wants us back, now. Seems Cronos is playing another of her mind games." She looked to the dimensional travellers and smiled a little. "She also invited the four of you to join us. She's most interested in meeting her 'double'."
