This, ladies and gentlemen, is the tenth and final chapter.
Previous chapters will eventually be available at
http://www.execulink.com. Howevere, right now they aren't. I'll send
them out in response to requests happily, though I'll charge in C&C.
Chapter 10
Sodium was not a happy minion of evil. In fact, he was a most unhappy
minion of evil. More accurately though, he was a scared-spitless minion
of evil.
"Oh come on! Like Argentium said, we can always get more! We don't
really need to do that final part! I didn't really fail!" He was
blubbering like a like baby.
In truth, you couldn't really blame him though.
Topaz finished the last knot and stood up, stretching his back.
Sodium was trussed up like a mummy, tied to a tall wooden post. Around
his feet was nearly half a cord of lumber. About seven other members of
the Dark Moon Clan were in attendance.
"WAII! I wanna live!" He cried.
"Well, everyone wants to live. Not everybody can though. Think of what
type of place it would be if everyone got to live, solely because they
wanted too. Sheesh." Onyx finished piling the kindling and took a few
steps back, admiring his handy work.
"Quite nice," Topaz complimented.
"Thank you."
Argentium took a few steps forward and climbed up so he was standing
right next to Sodium. "Now look. I'm with you on this one. Lets make a
deal. You tell me how to get those Terminators, and I'll see if I can
get you released. Okay?"
Sodium blabbed it to him in a rush.
"Thanks." Argentium stood and walked away. "Go to it boys."
"What!? AHHH!"
And the first event of the Weekly Executionary Olympics began. The long
distance energy blast throwing contest.
"You know, you have to tell me eventually." Mars sat on the stairs with
her hands in her lap.
"I don't see why. Cyanide is the name I've gone by for seven years now.
My old one died. It has a lot of really painful memories." Next to her
was a tall, tired, man. He realized that this would be the last time he
would speak to Mars and wanted to make at least something like peace
with her. Perhaps, he idly hoped, he could persuade her not to do it,
change history and all. If what Pluto said was true, he'd survive.
"Hmmph. I'm not letting this go you know."
Far above them, the rest of the Senshi were deep in conversation.
Tuxedo Mask and the cats were also there. How the cats got there is a
question the world may never know the answer too.
"So you say he's leaving?" Jupiter asked of the tuxedoed man.
"He said he was returning to his own time. Just as soon as that thing
was killed, he was going to leave." Tuxedo Mask kept his own thoughts to
himself. Based on what he had said about that drug he had taken earlier,
there was really no chance of him even lasting a few hours, much less
the journey home.
"That's not fair! Just when I was finally getting to know him," Venus
grumped.
"Tell me about it." Came the agreement from her taller friend.
"Well, that'll certainly be the end of this little escapade." Luna
didn't like him, though she had never met him. From what she had heard,
he was a trouble maker, a criminal, a miscreant, and had a foul mouth.
"Yeah, but he was a lot of help in a fight," Artemis contradicted her.
"He was a great help. We wouldn't have survived without him," Mercury
spoke softly, already missing him.
"Come on, lets go down and say goodbye." Moon lead the way down the
stairs. Tuxedo Mask fell into step besides her and the others also
joined in.
"Usagi, how much healing magic do you have?" The tall man asked of the
woman at his side.
"Some. Why?" The blond turned and looked at him curiously.
"During the fight, that man got really hurt. I'd like you to see what
you can do."
"Ok."
They made their way down the stairs and shortly met up with the two who
were waiting for them. They assembled into one big group.
"So, you're leaving." Jupiter said after several minutes of
uncomfortable silence.
"Yeah. I'm going back to my own time," He smiled wryly for a second.
"I'll probably see you there."
"You can't stay? Even for a little longer?" Venus asked.
"Nah. I have to get back." Cyanide shrugged. 'I'm gonna die in about an
hour. Can't let the little buggers be around me then. Besides, Pluto
just might be able to save me.' He kept the real reasons to himself.
They were all walking together now. They were out from under the Tokyo
tower and were now making their way towards an open area.
"Were you hurt at all?" Moon stepped forward, looking him over
carefully.
"A little."
"Let me see." She reached out and took hold of his sides, wondering if
the Silver Imperium Crystal could perhaps fix minor injuries.
Cyanide looked at for a moment before shrugging again. He removed his
coat and vest.
"Oh dear lord," Was all Mercury could say, the rest being unable to
even say that. Cyanide's neck, back, legs, and arms were a solid mass of
bloody injury. Long, open gashes from his fall from the tower radiated
from the top of his back. His arms were deeply cut where the glass in
the windows he had broken cut nearly to the bone. Three small holes
dotted his right leg, with exit wounds on the other side. His shirt and
pants were drenched in blood and dirt. All in all, everyone was amazed
he was alive, much less mobile.
"Yeah, I got busted up pretty bad."
"You need to go to the hospital!" Jupiter cried.
"Nah. I'll get fixed up by-"
A cold, metallic hand closed around his throat, cutting off his air and
anything else he was about to say.
Jupiter screamed, echoed moments later by Moon and Mercury.
It stood, deprived of skin and tissue, an armored framework. Shiny,
cleaned by the fiery explosion, it stood, having risen from the ashes of
its supposed death. The steel skull which grinned down at them focused
on the Senshi for a second before moving on. It clenched its fist,
causing Cyanide to gurgle and go very still, his head bending to an
unnatural angle. Then he was thrown backwards, and his inert body
crashed into a tree. He fell to the ground in a pile and moved no more.
Then the Senshi swung into action, the moment of shock and frozen
terror gone. As Jupiter and Venus took a step back to begin their
attacks, Mars leapt forward. She swung her leg in a kick, aimed straight
at that horrid smile it wore. She connected.
The problem, though, was that it grabbed her leg as she pulled it away.
With cold claws digging into her boot, she was lifted from her feet and
dragged through the air. Crying out, she flew in a short circle with the
T-101 at the center. Twisting its arm in midair, it cracked her like a
whip and swung her into the ground. She hit and everything went white.
Jupiter and Venus each began to call out their magic as Moon tried to
jump kick it. She hit it straight in the face, knocking it down. As it
went, it made an attempt to seize her leg but missed.
"Crescent Beam Shower!" Venus cried. Her yellow blast flared out,
catching the thing straight in the chest. It shuddered for a moment then
continued forward, undeterred.
"Jupiter Supreme-"
Tuxedo Mask, realizing his love was only a few feet from this metal
horror, rushed forward, cane swinging. It bounced harmlessly off its
armored innards. The thing shot a hand out and grasped the front of his
tuxedo. Its other hand swung down and crashed into his stomach. The
metallic fingers served as knives as they plunged deeply into his
stomach, gouging a great wound.
"Thunder DRAGON!" Jupiter released her lightening attack, hoping it
would make the thing back off. It didn't.
For a moment the visible metal glowed as electrical charges jumped to
the conducting metal. Then they flowed out, straight down through its
feet, and through Tuxedo Mask's body.
He screamed as almost fifty amps tore through his flesh, instantly
frying half his internal organs. He collapsed and shimmered for a
moment, finally hitting the ground as Chiba Mamoru. The smell of burned
meat filled the air.
"No! MAMO-CHAN!" Usagi screamed, jumping blindly forward. She slammed
her fist straight into its face, causing it again to tilt backwards. As
she brought her leg up to kick it in the side, it turned took the blow
full on. It barely moved.
Mercury began to cast a Bubble Blast, desperate for anything which
would let her friends escape. She had barely begun before the thing
pulled its arm down and caught Moon's leg. She screamed and braced
herself to be swung as it had Mars. She was not so lucky.
It pulled her forward, reaching out and catching a hold of the fabric of
her fuku's skirt. Now the magical strength proved to be Moon's liability
as instead of tearing, it held fast as she was pulled forward.
Jupiter came forward, desperate save her Princess. As she tried to
tackle it from behind, she succeeded in making it release Moon.
It pulled both its hands free and reached behind it, digging its hands,
twisted like claws, deep into Jupiters' shoulders. Unable to penetrate
the material of the fuku, that fabric was pushed deep beneath the skin
of Jupiter as it closed its fingers around her shoulder blades. She was
swung up, and over it's head, feeling like she was flying for a brief
instant, before crashing down into her blond friend. They collapsed to
the glass in a pile, Jupiter now having a set of long, deep, cuts on her
back where she was released from the Terminator's hands.
"Diamond! Come quick!" One of Sodium's flunkies yelled.
"What? What have you interrupted me-oh my." Diamond was forced to
silence as he came around the corner and caught sight of the events
portrayed on the Great Scrying Glass. He watched in shock for a few
minutes. "Go tell them to release Sodium. He is not to be harmed."
The toady rushed to the window and looked out. "Milord. Too late."
"Oh. Damn."
It brought its first down in a over hand punch, driving Jupiter to the
ground. To her right, Moon rushed forward, trying to get it off her. She
received a steel backhand for her troubles.
Mercury finally released the bubble blast, hoping she was in time. As
the cloud of blue swept across the field, quickly obscuring everything,
she ran forward herself. She almost tripped over Mars, slowly rising to
her feet. She stood weakly, weak from the blow she had received.
The T-101, abruptly deprived of its prey switched to infrared. That did
nothing though as the artificial temperature drop caused by the bubble
blast prevented it from seeing anything. It began to walk forward,
looking for its prey.
Venus lifted the unconscious Jupiter and began to run. She made it only
a few dozen yards before a wind swept the field clean. The thing strode
towards them, still intact and functional, despite everything they had
done to it. It showed some slight metal deformities, what Venus assumed
was the result of the earlier explosion.
Across the field from her, Moon and Mars stumbled away with Mercury
helping them both. Moon turned to the others. "Look, we need to lead it
away from the Tuxedo Mask and Cyanide. We'll take it towards the tower!"
"Right!" Mars gasped as she went with them.
"Listen! I just realized something! You see how all its circuitry and
electronics are covered by armor? They're inside hollow metal
conductors!" Mercury was nearly panicking with the realization of what
her new knowledge meant.
Moon made no such connections. "So?"
"Electrical attacks won't work! And Mars' fire will just get absorbed.
I don't know if any of our attacks will even hurt it!" Mercury felt like
crying. After that news sank in, Mars and Moon did too.
They ran, joining up with Jupiter and Venus. The metallic being behind
them strode purposely after them, red eyes glittering in the afternoon
sun.
After several seconds of panicked flight, they stopped at the base of
the tower, huddled in a circle. They had sought refuge and peace for a
moment to think so they had retreated to the opposite side of one of the
vast, metallic support pillars.
There the new found information was shared with Venus and Jupiter.
"So, what do we do? Grab Tuxedo Mask and Cyanide and run?" Venus found
the very idea distasteful.
"No. It'll just keep coming after us. And it may menace our families or
friends. We don't know how much it knows about us so we need to end this
here and now." Moon declared, her voice carrying more confidence then
she felt.
"But how?" Was the general response.
He walked through a field of the sky, warm glows of azure and turquoise
bathed his face and arms, and through it all, the feeling of peace and
calm pervaded all.
Of course, it would have been much nicer if his entire lower body
wasn't on fire with pain, he felt like some had tied weights to every
one of his limbs, and some evil man kept drumming on his head with a big
nasty stick.
"Death blows."
Cyanide was never that subtle a man.
After several seconds of wandering this decidedly non-crucial realm, he
decided that eternity was not going to be fun. In fact, it would quite
unpleasant.
"Death and eternity blow. This sucks."
"That because you haven't gotten to them yet. You're in a
hallucination."
Cyanide whirled around and came face to face with the one woman he
wanted to see least and most at the same time. Stepping from the
sapphire glow she came forward suddenly, right out of the blue.
"Hello Pluto. I thought you were stuck in the Castle 'o Time or
whatever it is you called it?"
"Not quite. This is a special case."
"I feel honored. So, what's the purpose of this visitation? Here to
give me the magic wand o power which will allow me to get into the fight
but will cause me too die horribly in about ten minutes?" Cyanide
wondered what exactly it was that she'd do to him now.
"No. I just came to talk."
Cyanide shot her a look of 125% doubt.
"I pulled you from your life, abused your love for me to make you come
back in time, risk death, help the one person you may truly hate, and
get injured repeatedly to help build something which will cause you more
pain and suffering than anything else in your life. I'm not totally
heartless. And I think that if you need an explanation, I'll give you
one."
Cyanide stared at her blankly, a look of complete disbelief on his
face. "You mean you're doing this just to be nice?"
"Yes. Is that so hard to believe?"
"Well, yeah."
"I'm not some heartless monster. It's just that I'll do anything to
make sure Crystal Tokyo comes to pass. I still have feelings and I try
to make what recompense I can." Pluto turned and began walking, slowly.
After a moment, Cyanide joined her.
They strode in silence for quite some time. Neither spoke. Pluto
refrained out of a decision that she was here to reply. Cyanide because
he didn't know where to start.
"I don't hate her you know. I tried but I can't. Even after all she
did."
"She loved you and never stopped, you know. After he died, the family
was just the two of you. And while we all loved her, she need her new
family. And after you were exiled, when she had lost both husband and
son in such a short amount of time, she was nearly destroyed."
Cyanide didn't reply.
After some time, the green haired woman resumed, "She used to come to
me and beg me to let her see you on Nemesis. She watched over you almost
incessantly for the first year of your life there."
"So, she could protect me from afar, but she couldn't show me she loved
me when I needed it." Cyanide's voice began to show the bitterness
again. He mentally cursed the steady loss of control he always felt
around the dark haired Senshi.
"You made her make a choice no one should ever have to make. You versus
her Queen."
"I should have won."
"Her service to her Queen was her life."
"Tough shit. I was her son."
The Senshi had lured the walking monstrosity into the maze of girders
that composed the center support column. There, with plenty of cover and
protection behind which they could hide, they were fighting the
glittering metallic assassin. And they were loosing.
Nothing they did mattered it seemed and this knowledge made more then
one of them want to cry. It seemed that everything they did was
meaningless. Venus Crescent Beams knocked it down, but they did not
prevent it from standing again. Mars' fire, Venus' ice, and Jupiter's
lightening were all meaningless. Nothing seemed to matter. And that
soulless murdered, that inaniment machine which came ever closer, in
steady, mechanical steps, was waiting. It waited for one of them to make
that one fatal mistake, that one error which would allow it to get its
diabolical, unfeeling fingers on one of justice's champions.
It pursued them, unceasingly, unvaryingly as only a mindless machine
can do. The endless procession of ones and zeros came together, moving
at a rate of a billion bites a second, together they spelled death,
plain and uncomplicated. The machine came on. Nothing slowed it and
nothing seemed able too.
It was after the fall of both Jupiter and Mercury that they began to
run. Coldly it caught them in its claws and they fell, moving no more,
not now, not ever. And ever it chased Sailor Moon, the Moon Princess
Reborn, ever it pursued target 1, the primary goal.
To her, it was rapidly shifting itself to the realm of a dream. Her
pursuer wasn't even human in shape, as both Ail and Ann and the minions
of Beryl had been. Some twisted, steel skeleton that followed eternally,
despite wrath of fire and magic, could not possibly exist. She had left
behind terror long ago and now she was operating in the dream that this
was. She pretended that it was real mainly to give the dream something
to work with. Any moment now, any moment at all, she would rise from her
slumber to hear her mother calling her, to realize that she was late for
school. Then she would return to her real life. A life where the
villains were people, not some mechanical entity which defied all of the
laws which she lived by. By its very existence it proved the rules of
the world she was so comfortable with were wrong. And she refused to
accept that as possible.
Therefore she acted along with the dream. She pretended to accept it,
even where that included running and seeing her friends fall. Why? She
knew that at any moment, she would wake and then everything would end.
And all would be right with the world.
Changed Planes of Mobility, Slope 2/3.
Reallocate Power 23% locomotion systems.
Target Location Shifting at -1.2m/sec^2
Operation Redecided to Full pursuit, 67%
It was at the top of the stairway that Mars and Moon first came to a
pause. There they panted for a moment.
"Where are the others?" Moon gasped between ragged breaths. Eighteen
floors did that.
"I don't know. I think Venus went came up another way. And Jupiter,
Mercury, they-" Mars trailed off, unable to complete her sentence.
"Don't worry, They'll be alright. We just need to take this thing down,
then we'll all be fine." Moon had finally figured out why she couldn't
wake up. She wouldn't be able to till she defeated the monster. It was
that simple. She figured it must be some new attack, locking her in a
dream. Or perhaps it was her mind warning her of something yet to come.
Either way, she needed to make it end. She was ready to wake up.
Mars had no such solace. For her, there would be no ending save the
final one. She realized that this was the end of them all. That there
would be no tomorrow after this. That the Silver Millenium was now just
a dream. And that no matter what they did, it didn't matter.
But she fought on. At first she couldn't figure out why even now,
laying down and dying simply wasn't an option. But now, she had realized
what it was. Her friends, both alive and those not here, needed her to
fight, either so they could live a little longer, or in their memory.
She wouldn't admit that anyone had died yet. Her mind refused to think
about it.
It was as the two of them rested for a moment, standing on the
observation floor, that their pursuer appeared. The echoes of his steps
on the stairs gave them a moments forewarning, and they were prepared
when he came around the corner.
Mars threw fire at it, which made it glow slightly for a moment but
nothing more. It continued forward.
The two heroines exchanged a look. Sink or swim, they told each other
in that glance. Now it was time for the final reckoning. There would be
not leaving this place.
As Moon swung a fist, Mars dove in to tackle it. She moved too fast for
it to react and just as Moon's blow hit its chest, Mars caught the back
of its knees. The two of them went down in a pile, which Moon dove into
in a moment.
All the elegance, beauty, and grace of their previous fights was absent
now. In a tangle of vicious, life or death combat, they grappled. Their
rolling and pounding harkened back to the dawn of man, back when there
was no crime because there were no laws yet made to be broken. When man
was new on the earth and he fought with viscous clawing and kicking.
Now, in what must surely be the end of the Silver Millenium and Crystal
Tokyo, the champions of what would be mankind's paradise, for a while,
bit, clawed, and gouged like primordial beasts.
And the effort was doomed before it began.
Now, when there was no room to maneuver, no place to dodge too, and no
time to launch magic, the engine of death that was the T-101 was
unstoppable. The Senshi had taken this last tactic as a desperate
gamble, nothing else worked, perhaps this would? Fate has to sigh
sometimes, for not every gamble wins, even when the heroes and forces of
good roll the dice.
Moon crashed into the steel wall, headfirst, and lay stunned. In the
moment when it concentrated on Mars, its superior strength paid off.
Mars was clenched by the throat and slammed against the wall, above and
slightly to the side of her fallen comrade.
The T-101 had an adapting processor though. It realized that to
concentrate on either of the two survivors now would spell defeat. So it
swung its left arms down, caught Moon by the face, and swung her into
the wall next to her compatriot.
It swung them in sequence, first one, then the other. They crashed into
the wall, again and again, with such force that eventually they could
fight no longer.
It pulled them back simultaneously now, ready to deliver the killing
blow and end its mission. If it had any final thoughts before victory,
they are unknown. Arms flailing wide, it readied targets 1 and 3 for
termination.
Sailor Moon looked across to the eyes of Sailor Mars, and smiled. Usagi
would always love her, she loved everyone. And that knowledge made Rei
able to accept her fate.
And then a noise filled the room. It was a small ding, a C flat,
slightly off tune, in fact. And the wall that Mars and Moon were about
to die on opened, a crack running straight down the middle expanded
until a figure stood there. The T-101's processors paused, recalculating
for this new threat.
Thus the Venus Crescent Beam Shower caught it completely off guard and
knocked it backwards. Its two victims were freed from its grip as it
collapsed backwards and they fell to the floor. Venus wasted no time in
pulling them into the elevator, hitting "Door Close," and sending the
elevator to the ground floor.
It rose again. Internal diagnostics revealed only insignificant damage.
It walked forward and inserted its fingers into the crack between the
two doors. There was a screech as the hydraulic pistons in its arms
fought against the motors holding the doors closed.
"Are you all right?" Venus asked, scared for her friends.
Neither answered as they were to intent on pulling air back into their
lungs.
"We should be able to get to the ground. There we can figure out what
to do. We can-" The rest of Venus' sentence went unsaid as a loud thump
on the top of the elevator car announced that a guest had arrived.
Seconds later a tile on the ceiling was ripped upwards.
One would be amazed at just how strong a magical attack can become when
reinforced with fear. One might also be surprised that three Senshi
would all target a wall two feet from them at the same time with said
magical attacks, but life is full of surprises.
Leaping into the elevator shaft via the car's second and newer door,
the Senshi fell only twenty feet or so before landing. They sprawled,
none hitting the ground well, and came to rest in a pile. It was five
feet from this pile that the Terminator landed. Its programming order
the mechanical muscles to move correctly to absorb the impact. It was
ready for the kill.
Moon jumped it, hoping to buy time for her friends to escape. She was
thrown into a wall for her troubles. Venus attempted to launch her
magic. A fist caught her in the face before she finished the first word.
Mars, now its target, did the sensible thing. She ducked to the other
side of the shaft, trying to escape. It followed her.
She lunged behind some wires and hoped they would hold it for a moment
or two. She was rewarded when its initial lunge was stopped in a tangle
of cable. Long term relief was not forth coming as it ripped the cables
free of their moorings and discarded them.
It stood tall above Mars now, right hand open to deliver a killing
blow. Mars couldn't move, the horror of the situation too much for her,
and she fell to the ground, lying on her back.
The T-101 was unmoved by this and began the weight shift to kill target
3. Then the audio sensors delivered a quick message. In reaction to the
sound, it paused, and looked around, trying to deduce the source. It
looked up and found it.
The ten ton elevator counterweight was roughly five feet from its face
and considering it had fallen the entire height of the tower, moving at
a goodly clip.
"Oh, suck." Diamond said from where he was watching the Great Scrying
Glass.
The general sentiment was agreement.
Three magical girls stepped out of the Tokyo tower and collapsed to the
ground.
"Hey Mars. You just killed the Terminator, what are you going to do
now?" Came Venus' voice after a moment. She wasn't sure why she called
it that, it just seemed fitting.
"Take a nap."
And the other two joined her.
` Epilogue
Argentium hummed to himself in his room. His claim on power was secure.
He was the only person who knew how to get the T-101s, and he felt that
sending monsters back one at a time had always been a stupid idea. First
thing in the morning, the Senshi were going to have to deal with twenty.
He smiled at the thought as he undressed and crawled into bed, without
brushing his teeth. He wiggled for a second, making himself comfortable,
and began to drift off.
"Hello, ass munch."
Abruptly he stopped drifting and became completely awake. Someone had
invaded his private room!
"Who are you! How dare you attack Prince Diamond's Military Advisor in
his own bed!"
The figure stepped from the shadows and smiled.
"Simply, bucky boy. I've got about two and a half minutes left before I
kick off because of massive internal bleeding, innumerable major
injuries, three different kinds of drug overdose, and the magic keeping
me alive is going to go out. And I'm really unhappy that you're planning
on undoing everything I'm about to die for."
Argentium abruptly realized who was pointing that really big, really
nasty, really shiny gun at him. He wet himself.
"What for you want to hurt my little friends? After all the trouble
they're about to go through with the Imperium Silver Crystal to bring
everybody back. I'm most unhappy with you. And my two friends, Mr. Smith
and Mr. Wesson are quite unhappy too."
"Please, please don't kill me! I'll reform my ways. Forget all about
that alternate time line! Join a monastery! Submit to purification!"
"Sorry, pal. I don't care."
"Hey! You're one of the warriors for Crystal Tokyo! You support love,
justice, and the magical way! You have to let me have a chance to reform
my ways." Argentium, eyes wide with fear, begged.
Cyanide smiled, a large, deep, and most unfriendly smile. "Would you
care to put any money on that?"
Argentium decided to give it all up in one last attempt at living and
cast his only possible spell. He could only pull one off without words
and he used it now. It was effective for causing incredible pain in the
victim and it should give him a chance to get away.
"Ooh. That tickles."
"W-w-w-what!? Why aren't lying on the ground twitching?" Argentium
cried.
"Heroin, my boy. Heroin. It got me Exiled from Crystal Tokyo once, and
it'll be the death of me yet. But it'll be the death of you first."
The guards rushing into the room to find a horrifying scene. It was so
unspeakably bad that I can't speak of it. Typing counts.
The End
Physics note: Solid or hollow metal conductors do what I say they do.
This isn't me changing reality by author's license.