"How come Mask never appeared this time? I mean, it's like he's always
following the dragons..." Minako asked.
"And what did you feel about this one, Rae?" Mamoru asked her.
"This one's VERY different from Jade... I could feel anger in him, but
nothing really evil." She answered.
"There's also the way he supervised us as we fought, he even told
Mamo-chan's why his attack hadn't made any effect!" Usagi commented as
she held Mamoru's arm.
"In a way I feel he's even more dangerous because of that." Ami stated
seriously "After all, if he could tell us how to correct our mistakes,
that means he's learnt a lot about us already, just from watching."
"I agree," Mamoru stood as he talked. "When Jade's elementals attacked
us they did so in a way that suggested that Jade had underestimated
us. Gold's elementals... were different."
Ami signaled them to stop. "Here comes Makoto with Nathan..."
--------------------Sailor Moon; Masks and Dragons---------------------
Chapter 5; Sapphire's story.
By Wanderer D
"Those humans I got a good look at are passable fighters. It's obvious
that Jade underestimated them... but he should have been able to stop
them."
"Don't tell me you wished he had survived."
"I never said that, Sapphire."
Gold held up the statue. "I wonder why Black wants this thing. Granted,
it's probably ancient and unique, but..."
"And I wonder what you're thinking, making things easier for that
murderer!" she spat, her eyes blazing. "Whatever he want's it for it's
not for the benefit of dragonkind, you can be sure about that!"
Gold shrugged and stepped into Black's throne room.
Sapphire glared at him as he gave the statue to Black.
'That idiot is going to cause the death of all of us!'
Mamoru and Usagi arrived at Mamoru's apartment. With an audible
breath they dropped the bags.
"Wow, what a weekend!" Mamoru gasped.
"Could you tell me why is it that we're always where the problems are?"
"If someone is responsible for that, I'd like to meet him or her and
share a portion of my mind!"
Someplace, somewhere, Setsuna sneezed.
"Well, Mamo-chan I think I'll take a bath..." Usagi said in a sexy
voice. Luna sweat-dropped.
"Umm? Oh, sure, just, don't take too long. Remember we had to meet at
the temple later."
Usagi, fuming, went into the bathroom and slammed the door. Mamoru
looked at Luna, who was trying not to break out laughing.
"What's wrong with her?"
"Well Makoto? Where were you all that time?" Asked Rae with her usual
temper.
"With Nathan; Gold captured us and threw us into the sea."
Ami's head snapped up. "Does he know you're Sailor Jupiter?"
"No." Makoto's answer was short and fast. Mamoru and Rae looked
sharply at her. "If the two of you were together, how did he miss
that?"
Makoto blushed. "Well, I..."
The others were paying attention.
"I... hithimonthehead! Okay!? I left him unconscious!" Everyone fell
back, huge sweatdrops appearing on their brows.
"Well... that's... okay... I guess. So he didn't know who we were?"
Rae pressed.
A small sweatdrop appeared on the back of Makoto's head. 'I can't
believe they bought that...' "Uh, no, he didn't know. That's why I
turned back into Makoto before going to him.
She then proceeded to recount much of what happened down there.
Nathan sneezed. "Ouch!" He rubbed the back of his head. "Still
hurts!" He sighed. He knew why Makoto did it, but... when she said
it had to look realistic he hadn't thought it would mean a two day
headache.
"While we were fighting Gold, Mask never appeared," Ami thought
aloud. "Could it be that..."
"No way!" Usagi exclaimed. "You think Nathan could be Mask?!"
Ami shrugged. "It would seem sensible. First, both Nathan and Mask
appeared the same day, they both know about dragons, you even said
so yourself Makoto. Mask knows about dragon magic, while it's very
probable that Nathan knows too, judging by the resources he has."
"So what if he is Mask?! That guy has helped us a lot since he
appeared." Makoto argued.
"And I didn't feel the anger that I feel in Mask with Nathan..."
Rae added.
"Anyway, we should be careful, both for his and our protection. You
know how dangerous things can be Makoto." Said Mamoru. "Have you
found anything else on the dragon statues, Ami?"
"No..." she started.
"And you won't." came a new voice. They prepared themselves for
anything and looked around, searching for the origin of the voice.
Rae gasped as a hole appeared in the air infront of the sacred
fire. Through it stepped another dragon. This one female with shiny
blue scales. They hadn't seen a dragon this close without being in
combat, they all noticed that despite the fierce looks, sharp
talons and white fangs this new dragon could be considered
beautiful even by human standards.
Rae and the others assumed a battle stance.
Makoto was the first to speak. "What are you doing here, Dragon?
And who are you?"
Sapphire turned to look at Mamoru. "Don't you remember my voice?"
He stared. "You're the one that opened Jade's spell for us!"
Sapphire nodded. "And I have brought you this..." A small black
dragon statue appeared in her hand. She placed it on the floor
before turning around and walking towards the portal.
"I have placed a false statue where this one was. No one will
notice it... for now. Hide and guard that statue with your life.
It might be the last chance we all have."
"Wait!" Makoto exclaimed. "You didn't tell us your name!"
"The name's Sapphire. We'll meet again..."
She walked into the portal. When she left they heard her voice.
"By the way, Winter's been following you for a while. I managed
to lead him away for a while. So don't mention the statue after
I'm gone! You've got about five minutes."
With that she left leaving everyone surprised. The senshi looked
at the Black Dragon statue, and wondered; was this a trap? Or did
a new ally appear?"
Finally Usagi had to ask. "Guys? Who's Winter?"
That night;
Ami was seated on her desk. The small dragon statue placed before
her as she ran a scan on it.
"Made out of ebony, residues of energy..., hmmm, perfect to every
detail, no marks of any kind other than normal according to dragon
anatomy mentioned in Nathan's book." [yawn] "I'd better get some
sleep... tomorrow's school day."
"Going to sleep already? I thought you needed information."
Ami's head snapped up. There, leaning against the wall was Sapphire.
Suddenly Ami remembered what had happened to Usagi's family, this
dragon seemed to be on their side, but what if it was an enemy? They
seemed to be able to move very easily to where they wanted.
"You look pale..." Sapphire said as she approached Ami.
"Ami?" Her mother's voice came from downstairs as she closed the door.
Ami then heard her mother's footsteps as she walked up the stairs to
her room. "Is everything all right dear?" Ami looked from her door to
Sapphire who watched her.
"We have to hide..." she began, the door to her room opened. "Ami?" her
mother asked as she walked into her room and looked at it's occupants.
"Oh.."
"Rae."
Rae looked up from the kitchen as she prepared dinner. "Yes,
grandfather?"
"How's Usagi's family doing? I heard there was an attack there..."
Rae looked at her grandfather carefully. "Yes. A monster attacked her
house, but Sailor Moon and the Sailor Senshi stopped it."
Her grandfather nodded. "I passed there to check on them, since
Usagi's a friend of ours. And I felt this strange energy there,
definitely strange, I supposed that it was from the monster... however
this afternoon, after I got here I felt a similar energy. You wouldn't
know about that would you?"
"Ofcourse not grandfather... well, Usagi was here today, and she
stayed in her house after the attack for a while. Maybe it was hers."
"Yes, maybe. Well, what's for diner?"
"Oh, I'm sorry. I wasn't aware that you'd brought a friend from
school." Ami's mother smiled.
"Huh?!" Was her mother crazy?! She turned around to look at Sapphire.
Where the female dragon stood, there was now a girl, about Ami's same
age, with blue hair almost like her own and deep-sea blue eyes.
"Who's your friend Ami?" Her mother asked.
Sapphire bowed to Ami's mother. "My name is Ryuuza Sapphire,
Mizuno-sama."
Ami's mother bowed back. "I'm glad to meet you Sapphire-chan. Will
you join us for diner?"
Sapphire looked at Ami, smiling wickedly. "I'd be honored, Mizuno-sama,
but please, call me by my name; Sapphire."
"You may call me Dr. Mizuno, that's what Ami's friends call me."
After her mother left Ami turned to look at the dragon in wonder. "The
book said that only the most powerful dragons were able to shift into a
human!"
"Well, I didn't 'shift'." Sapphire said.
"What?! But, you look human!"
"Ever heard of illusions? If it will make you feel better..." Ami was
suddenly looking at the chest of the female dragon. Realizing that, she
immediately looked up to her eyes, blushing.
"Gomen, I..."
"Don't worry about it. Anyway, I see you've been examining the statue,"
Sapphire took it and looked at it intently. "Have you found anything
about it?"
Ami sighed. She had hoped that Sapphire would know what the statues
were for. "No, other than vestigial energy from thousands of years ago,
I haven't found anything. Even the book didn't say anything."
"You've mentioned this book before, may I see it?"
Ami shrugged and offered the book to the dragon, who grabbed it.
Upon touching it the dragon's eyes opened in surprise.
"Dragon-scale..." she wondered. She opened it and passed through the
pages.
"This is interesting, but they're only information and some legends..."
"Tell me, Sapphire, what are we up against? Who's controlling the
attacks?"
Sapphire looked at the statue, then at her. "I... how can I explain?
Let me tell you a story;"
"Once, a long time ago, before humans evolved into what they are today,
dragons already were 'civilized', much like you are today."
"The dragons have been governed since that time by The Council. This
council is formed by the elders of each of the dragon kinds, at that
time there were seventeen kinds of dragons and seventeen elders in
charge.
Years later after the formation of The Council, a black dragon named
Ember took charge as elder of the black dragons. He was a dragon of
immense power, and also very savage.
By this time the other intelligent races of the world had evolved to
some extent, elves and dwarves had built cities already, and humans
were advancing in giant steps, Ember decided that this creatures were
to be either eliminated or controlled, and began organizing his armies.
They began attacking the other species shortly after. The Council was
not happy with this and ordered Ember to stop; he didn't.
The Council then attacked Ember and his army of black dragons. It was
a short but bloody battle. Ember's armies were outmatched by at least
4 to 1, but they fought fanatically. Ember himself killed a lot of
dragons. I was born three thousand years after the battle, and still
heard the stories of how a single dragon had killed hundreds with his
speed, magic and strength.
He was some sort of bogeyman to young dragons.
The Council decided that multiple intelligent species were not
compatible with each other, and to avoid a battle like that again
they asked the gods to help them and cast a very powerful spell that
torn the world asunder.
Elves were sent into another dimension with the other species, dragons
into another and the humans were left in this world, since they had
been the most damaged of the groups.
It would be a long time before we dragons heard of elves or humans
again.
Two thousand years ago a descendant of Ember; a black dragon who went
with the pet name 'Black' was named Council Member. He was called
Black mainly because his scales were black among black, but the
members failed to see that black's soul was as black as his scales,
if not blacker. Using his new post and resources Black began secretly
building his own army. He personally selected his generals; A green
dragon by the name of Jade, his personal assassin I'd say.
A white dragon calling himself 'Winter', a red dragon known by all
dragonkind as 'The Great Red' who is a very powerful mage, a gold
dragon who called himself 'Gold' out of a whimsy, his own daughter,
Raven, and another female, a blue dragon, Sapphire."
"Dragon names are long and complicated for humans to say, and quite
frankly we dragons prefer our much simpler pet names. You seem
surprised to find out that I am... was one of Black's minions.
In that time we all believed in the cause, that has changed.
On a scouting mission Raven met a shadow dragon. His name's not to be
mentioned, since Black would know of it just by that, so we'll call
him; Shadow.
They fought and Shadow won, instead of killing her, Shadow helped her
notice her own mistakes in fighting. They became good friends and
eventually lovers.
Ah, now you blush, well, it's normal to talk about that for us, so
don't worry.
Anyway, Black obviously learnt about this and offered a post to Shadow,
who rapidly agreed.
Black recognized much potential in the young dragon and adopted him as
his prot�g�. At this time the elder gold dragon that represented his
kind had died of old age, and Black manipulated his contacts so Gold
was put as the second in command of the new elder in charge, this gave
Gold a golden opportunity (pun intended) to promote in post and charge,
and so he followed Black's orders to the point where he achieved his
new post.
Shadow learnt magic from The Great Red, as Black himself had and
fighting skills from the black dragon himself. Eventually he was almost
as powerful as Black.
To make a long story short, Black ordered us to go the elf world. He
put Shadow in charge of the mission. It was a failure. Shadow received
orders to kill all living beings in sight and refused, as did Raven.
Black was furious and decided to take action, he somehow gathered all
the shadow dragons and found a way to make them look like traitors. The
Council's policy had been to execute all traitors and they did. The
only ones who knew the truth were either not interested in the fate of
others or too afraid of Black to speak."
Sapphire clenched her fists. "The news reached Shadow and Raven while
they were in the Elven world, and they returned to Black's palace in
search for vengeance."
"Black ordered us to fight Shadow so he could deal with his daughter
privately. Gold spoke out back at the council about Black's treachery,
and all dragons gathered around his castle to fight him. While dragons
fought outside, Shadow's battle had taken him into the throne room,
where Black was.
There, he found Black retrieving his claws from Raven's stomach. It was
horrible.
Shadow had literally kicked everyone's tail to get to Black, only to
find him killing his lover. Grief stricken, Shadow attacked Black.
Fighting valiantly, but blindly. Shadow received a fatal blow.
Black then took his castle out from the dragon dimension into a small
pocket one.
And has coordinated this from there ever since. He recently ordered us
to gather the statues, but only he knows what they're for. My only real
hope is that you can find a way to use whatever it is that he seeks to
do with them and use it against
him. That's why I risked contacting you."
"Wow, that Black guy's a real creep!" Minako exclaimed, while Artemis,
who was seated on her lap, nodded.
Rae muttered. "'Creep' is NOT the word I would use to describe a being
like that."
"Then what word would you use to describe him?" Usagi asked blinking.
Rae took a deep breath... "[censored][censored]moronic[censored]son of
a [censored][censored]!!!" Everyone Big-sweated.
"That's..." Mamoru began.
"Original..." Luna said.
"Rae..." Makoto looked at her friend wide eyed.
"I wonder if it's appropriate to say things like that in a temple..."
Artemis muttered under his breath, earning a glare from Rae.
Rae looked at Ami. "Did she tell you anything else?"
Ami, who had been staring at her friend in surprise stammered.
"W...well, yes," Everyone turned her attention to her. "It was after
dinner."
"You had dinner with a dragon!?" Minako was practically screaming.
Without a word Rae stared Minako to a seat. Coughing softly Ami
continued.
"We had dinner and she talked with my mother, when she was going she
warned me that Black could try doing the same thing he tried with
Usagi's family, and that we should keep them away until this all
ended."
Flashback;
Ami and illusion-Sapphire are standing infront of her house.
"Listen Ami, I have to warn you; with White's help Black has learnt
all your secret identities. If he becomes desperate enough, or more
likely; pissed enough, he might try what he did with your friend
again."
"Oh, this is just great Ami! How am I going to convince my
Grandfather to leave the temple!?"
"And do you suppose I will find it easier to tell my mother to beat
it?" Ami retorted finally being fed up with Rae's attitude.
This seemed to calm Rae for a moment.
"Listen Rae, at this rate someone's bound to get killed. You've
heard what Sapphire told me. Black will do anything to get what he
wants, and swearing won't get us anywhere."
"What are we going to do?" Minako asked.
Ami stood up, looking resolutely at the others. "I don't know what
you're planning to do." She said. "But I know what I'm going to do,
and why I'm going to do it." With that she ran out of the temple.
Makoto stood up and ran after her.
"Ami! Wait up! I'm going with you!"
Rae looked at the two as they ran away, she sighed. "I understand
Ami, I also know who I want to see alive..."
"Dr. Mizuno! Here's another one!" shouted one of the many people
who had offered to help searching for survivors from the Tokyo
Tower.
Ami and Makoto walked into the area they had avoided thinking about
or returning too in the last days. There had been so far two
survivors, and for the senshi, the Tower was a painful remainder of
their failures.
Even when Nathan had heard the story and told her that they didn't
have much of a choice, Makoto still felt very guilty about the
deaths of so many.
Ami seemed to feel the same, since she was very pale as she walked,
although it could be that what she was about to do would be so
hard.
They saw Ami's mother examining the body of a little girl, then
shake her head slightly. Ami stopped dead staring at the small
body, then her eyes hardening, stepped towards her mother.
Dr. Mizuno looked at her daughter as she and Makoto walked
towards her and went to meet them.
"Ami? What are you two doing here?"
For a moment Ami seemed to doubt her decision, but it quickly
passed.
"Mom, I need to talk to you."
"Couldn't this wait until tonight? I'm very busy here, Ami."
"It's very important mom." Ami's mother looked into her eyes,
and was surprised beyond possible by the look in her eyes.
Leaving another doctor in charge, Dr. Mizuno followed her
daughter and her friend.
End Chapter 5
-----------
Anyway; to continue the ritualistic tradition, I present you
the almighty and great;
Standard Disclaimer; I'm using the Sailor Moon characters with
no permission whatsoever, and therefore anyone reading this
must remember it's not what the original creators had in mind.
I'm also gaining absolutely nothing remotely similar to money
and what I write is as an appreciation of this wonderful
series.
The other characters however, are my creations and are also
copyrighted, anyway I know you really don't care so I wont
mention anything else.
Well, what did you expect?
Later!!
Wanderer D