Eclipse of the Moon 2: Purification Day
Chapter 3
Mizuno Ami sighed and leaned against a wall. It was Thursday evening,
and the Senshi were in the midst of a business meeting. It wasn't so
much business that they hadn't spent the first hour grilling her about
her date though. No detail had been left untouched; no moment was
ignored.
"Well, now that we're done with the important stuff, let's talk about
this new guy." Usagi clearly considered this minor as compared to Ami's
love life.
"He seems to be from the Negaverse. Didn't we beat all those guys when
we smashed Beryl?" Makoto had given this more than a little thought.
"He must have escaped or been in hiding," Artemis said. "He is most
definitely not beaten."
"Well, he's strong and fast but not very powerful. Since we fought
Beryl we've all grown. I think that by himself he won't be too much of a
threat," Minako commented from the side.
"Good. So the next time he shows up, we just take him out." The other
blonde smiled and started looking for some manga.
"Oh yes. We will take him out," Minako muttered darkly, to low for
anyone else to hear.
***
They got their chance less than a week later. Makoto, on the way home
from a grocery store, had seen Pearl assaulting a crowd of people in an
open air mall. While he was doing the drain your energy bit, she had
transformed and called the others. Makoto knew that by herself she was
as good as dead against him, but she had to try and delay him. Besides,
she could not just let him hurt these innocent people.
She had leapt to the scene with a flourish and a speech. Pearl, furious
that he was being interrupted again, had lashed out with power from
nightmares. Black Pain Energy was what he called his attack, and it
seemed equally capable of rending steel as flesh. She had ducked and
dodged as best as she could, her considerable martial arts training
helping her immensely. Still, she was not quite fast enough. She never
had time to throw a counter attack.
She was almost died when a stone she landed on broke. Tumbling to the
ground in a pile, the Senshi of Jupiter had looked up in time to see
Pearl preparing a blast that would no doubt end her life.
It had not ended there, though. At just the right time, a Venus
Crescent Beam Shower had hit Pearl straight in the back, making him lose
his aim. The sinister black ball had flown straight into the air and
collided with tree down the lane, killing it instantly.
Sailors Moon, Venus, Mars, and Mercury stood unified upon the roof of a
department store. Moon had declared loudly that for hurting her friend,
Pearl was going to be punished.
"Ha!" Pearl had responded. "You pathetic fools can't stand against me!
I am Pearl! I remember when my Queen Beryl smashed you all, leaving your
corpses desiccated on the ground like so much trash! I have slumbered
all these long years, and now, I will have my revenge. Die Senshi."
Pearl had given his declaration added weight by destroying the store
upon which the Senshi had stood.
The fight really got going after that. Pearl, as Mercury had predicted,
was not nearly as powerful as the Senshi combined. One on one, he
outmatched them easily. Five on one, the outcome was almost certain. It
was not in Pearl's favor either.
He seemed to realize this minutes into the fight. As time wore on, and
his attacks seemed ineffectual against the combined forces of love and
justice, he began to panic. Calling on the strength of desperation and
hate, and his immense reservoir of stolen energy, he ran, ducked,
dodged, and fought like a cornered tiger. Black Pain Energy flew with
wild abandon and the harder to cast Pure Evil Shatter blasts made the
air thick with the stench of evil and ancient, brooding corruption.
But it just wasn't enough. At first the Senshi barely held their own,
in some cases crawling from hiding spot to hiding spot. Then, as the
rhythm of the battle began to set itself, they took advantage of the
holes and flaws in their opponent's fighting style. Mars scored against
the side of his face with a Fire Soul Bird, and Jupiter twice managed to
electrocute him. A step at a time at first, but steadily faster and
faster, they pushed Pearl back. Finally, Pearl was all but running,
desperately seeking shelter for the few seconds it would take him to
cast himself through space and escape.
It might of ended there. The Senshi might have won relatively
painlessly and simply. An evil man would have been forever wiped from
the face of Earth, to be the bane of honest men nevermore. There would
have been a happy ending.
Psshhah. As if.
Instead, as Pearl desperately cast his spell of teleportation, the
Senshi lined up and as one cast their magical strikes against him. The
five multicolored streams of energy surged from open hands, wrapping
around each other 'til a single beam of iridescent light streaked
towards Pearl. He gazed at his incoming death, knowing that he would
never escape in time. He accepted his fate.
But didn't I just say that wasn't in the cards? Would I lie to you?
A moment before the polychromatic death knell smashed into Pearl, a man
appeared in front of him. The energy collided with the newcomer's chest
and for a moment he was wreathed in a glow resembling St. Elmo's fire.
Then the energy dissipated and the unfortunate, and unintended victim
dissolved in a colored pool. The remnants of magic made his remains
appear metallic. Pearl, not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, got
the hell out of Dodge.
"AH! No!" Moon was the first to react, fear and horror bright in her
eyes.
The other Senshi were also horrified at what they had done. Was the
blood of an innocent man on their hands? Were they, supposedly the
heroines, now common murders?
Then the melted man began to flow back together.
Slowly the pool of silvery liquid collected itself. It congealed like
an ice cube melts in reverse, were the ice cube six feet tall and made
from polished steel. It resolved itself into a vaguely erect shape.
Still mostly formless, it possessed a mirror like exterior.
In unison the Senshi blinked.
The vertical puddle seethed for a second before refining itself.
Loosing it's vaguely phallic appearance, it manifested a human shape and
features. Then, like someone had abruptly thrown a switch, color raced
across the surface if it. Before the Senshi stood the man they had just
thought dead, completely healed and in, to all outward appearances,
perfect health.
The Senshi blinked again. Twice.
The man stared back at them, eyes cold and hard. For a long moment they
stared at each other across the broken concrete as a bitter wind sprang
from nowhere. It seized pieces of waste and whipped them into a circle,
redistributing everything on the ground again a moment later.
The man attacked.
He started sprinting towards them, eyes still flinty. As he crossed the
intervening space, he picked up speed. He arms swung up and down before
him in time with his steps, fingers together and hands flat.
The Senshi scattered. Whatever mysterious source of wisdom speaks to
girls fighting for their lives hinted rather strongly that this was not
someone to be taken lightly. As the girls darted in five different
directions, the man ran through the middle of them, hands swinging to
the sides, desperate to catch someone as they moved from his way. He did
not succeed.
Venus looked behind her as she landed on an empty trashcan. For
whatever reason the mysterious attacker had chosen to come after her.
For several long seconds she fled, jumping from place to place. Deciding
that this had gone on long enough, she leapt over a tall, ornamental
fence surrounding a small garden. Obviously designed to keep children
from stomping on the flowers, now it should serve to let her make an
escape.
But her attacker cheated. Instead of climbing over the fence, he just
walked through it. The bars seemed to melt through his skin as they
flowed past him without resistance. In the time it took Venus to take a
staggering step backwards, the man was before her.
"Uh oh," Venus commented.
The man jabbed hard with his left hand. As Venus dove backwards to
escape it, it changed. The forearm sprouted a blade, a rapidly
extending blade moving straight at her face.
Then the obligatory last minute save came in. Tuxedo Kamen had
previously been uncertain as to whether or not his contract included
Venus specifically. He usually just did the rose thing when Moon was
about to die. Still, he figured it would be just a friendly favor. So
the rose whisked through the air and impaled the blade, knocking it
aside and away from Venus' face.
Which made the attacker pause not at all. He pulled the flower from his
arm, it was an arm again, and tossed it to the side. Then he tried to
disembowel Venus again. Tuxedo Kamen hadn't yet had time to start his
speech.
"No, no, no. You need to be more assertive."
The Tuxedo clad man turned and looked at the speaker in confusion. Next
to him, also perched atop the roof of Little Wanker house of English
Food, was another dark and mysterious stranger. Difference was this one
had what appeared to be an M-16.
Venus' pursuer staggered back as 7.62 mm lead projectiles slammed into
his chest. Large, gleaming craters opened up all over him, and he fell
to his posterior.
"Now kick his ass!" Tuxedo Kamen did not really like this guy
succeeding where he had failed, but at least he offered the required
words of encouragement. Well, they were something like encouragement.
"Um...right." The Senshi paused in indecision for a moment before all
coming to the same decision simultaneously. At some unknown signal, they
all released their magical attacks, slamming the strange man with the
energy of love and justice.
He melted again.
Then someone smacked Mars across the back with a stop sign.
She screamed in pain and hit the ground, unable to feel her legs. Her
limp body rolled across the pavement until it came to a stop at
Jupiter's feet.
The Senshi all looked up as one. They saw their new attacker.
Later, Tuxedo Kamen remembered that it was Jupiter that screamed first.
Moon, Venus, and Mercury had joined in a moment later, but Jupiter had
been the first one.
Discarding the bent stop sign, the huge, bulky figure walked towards
them with measured tread. Dark hair, dark clothing obviously scavenged
from a dumpster, blank expression, everything was the same.
The Senshi, frozen in shock, could only stare at him like deer in the
headlights. He had plagued their nightmares, terrified them when they
went to bed, and been lurking around the unseen corners of fear. The
single most sinister, vicious, most horrifying opponent they had ever
met. And now he was back.
Someone emptying the last of a magazine into the machine's chest shook
them out of their shock. The tall man staggered for a second but righted
himself a moment later.
The break was all the Senshi needed though. They came out of their
shock and instantly decided that a strategic retreat was called for.
Moon lifted Mars to her shoulders, and they ran.
Author's after note.
A B sharp, punctuated by a flam.