[FFML] [SM] Sailor Moon 4200: Chapter 14 (part 4 of 4)

[Angus MacSpon]

<< CONTINUED FROM PART 3 >>

Sailor Venus followed the others, lagging behind a little.  She was too
distracted to keep up.  Something had gone wrong; she'd felt it the
moment she transformed.  Half of her was missing.

She was still trying to analyse the problem when the others stopped, and
she almost walked into Jupiter's back.  They were on a narrow open
staircase that ran up the side of the big building, near the rear.  The
door at the top had a mechanical lock, and Venus wondered if they would
have to break it down.  To her surprise, though, Sailor Mercury turned
out to be good at picking locks.  Who would have guessed?  She kept her
visor down and referred frequently to her computer as she worked, but
she had the door open within three minutes.  Venus made a mental note to
add some books on lock-picking to her reading list, and then forgot it
again almost instantly.

Inside the door was a very ordinary-looking corridor that ran the length
of the building.  Windows lined one wall; the other wall had a double
door, with a small window in each half, every few metres.

Sailor Moon cocked her head to one side, considering.  "Okay," she said.
"Check the doors, everyone."  The group began to spread out.

Venus let herself lag a little behind the others.  Every few seconds she
paused, closing her eyes and concentrating, but the result was the same
each time.  She felt ... wrong.  Disconnected.  Empty.

It had started the moment she changed to Sailor Venus.  In the aftermath
of transformation she had stood there, henshin wand still raised, and
waited for the usual rush of exultant self-confidence and wild strength.
Waited, she now knew, for the spirit of Aino Minako to take over.

But instead, there was nothing.  She did not feel any different.  Oh,
she was in her Senshi uniform, yes, and the other physical aspects were
there: she was a little taller, a little bustier.  But inwardly,
mentally, nothing was right.

She did not *feel* like Venus.  She felt like Beth.  And she did not
like it.

Tense and uneasy, she followed the other Senshi, still trying to think
what could have happened.  In her dream, the night after meeting Queen
Serenity, Lady Aino had been on the point of telling her something.  Was
it about this?  Had Lady Aino been trying to warn her?

She was passing a door.  Venus looked through the window, but saw only a
long, narrow room lined with shelves and workbenches.  She moved on.

What was she supposed to do without Minako guiding her as Venus?  Alone,
with nobody but boring, hopeless old McCrea Beth to rely on?  Could she
even function as a Senshi at all?  Could she fight?  Because Beth had
never been a fighter.  Beth was the one with her books and her daydreams
and fantasies and her soppy poetry about Eitoku.  And what use was any
of that?

She almost ran into Jupiter's back for the second time before she
noticed that the others had stopped once more.  They were at the end of
the corridor, looking at one last door.  Unlike the rest, this one was
of heavy steel, and there was a very visible security lock and keypad.

Once again, Mercury was pulled to the fore.  She looked the door over,
grumbling, and then started to tap away at her computer.  Several
minutes passed, and Venus began to fidget.  She looked around and saw
Bendis and Artemis nearby, watching, and bent to pick up Bendis.

"Nothing so far?" whispered the cat.

"I haven't seen anything," replied Venus truthfully.

"Look," Bendis said back in a low voice, "there's something I need to
tell you, about --"

Venus shushed her, eyes returning to the door.  But then, spurred by the
cat's voice, she began to fall into a brown study again.  All those
lessons in cat-fighting Bendis had given her: could she still use them?
Or was it Lady Aino who had learned them, so that if Beth tried it on
her own, she would only make a fool of herself --

"Ah!" said Mercury in a pleased tone.  A moment later there was a beep,
followed by an audible click, and the door eased open a crack.  Mercury
turned to wink at Venus.  "Fire control systems, check," she said with a
grin.

Taken by surprise and only half sure what the girl was talking about,
Venus nodded in return.  Thankfully, Mercury seemed satisfied.  She
turned back to the door and pushed it the rest of the way open.  She had
to exert herself; as the door moved, they could all see how thick and
heavy it was.  Nevertheless, it turned smoothly and without a sound.

Sailor Moon took the lead and they ventured forward.  A short corridor
lay behind the door, leading deeper into the building.  Then it gave way
to an open metal staircase, leading downward.  Moon went cautiously down
a few steps -- and then froze and retreated.  She turned to face the
others, holding a finger up to her lips.

"Bingo," she said in a low voice.

Soundlessly, a ripple of excitement ran through the group.  The eight of
them looked around, exchanging nods and grins.  Venus' heart began to
pound; her doubts were forgotten for the moment.  Then, moving silently,
five Senshi, two cats and a masked man started forward once more.

The staircase descended ten or fifteen steps, ending on a catwalk that
ran high along the upper wall of a vast room.  They paused there,
involuntarily, to look around and gape.

[You could fit a football pitch in here,] Venus thought, awed.  The
chamber must have occupied the entire bottom two or three levels of the
building.  It was easily ten metres high.  There were no windows;
instead the interior was bathed in a harsh white light from the
brilliant glowing panels that covered most of the ceiling.  The catwalk
where the Senshi stood circled the walls; here and there, narrow metal
stairways led down to a spotless grey tiled floor.

On the floor of the chamber was an array of metal cylinders: fifteen of
them, in five rows of three.  They were massive things: nearly three
metres tall, and half as much wide.  Each was surrounded by a semicircle
of equipment: racks of controls, readout screens, and less-identifiable
devices.  A dizzying array of pipes, tubes and cables ran to the top of
each cylinder, descending from a framework of girders that crisscrossed
the room.  Narrow walkways extended from the catwalks out into the
network of pipes.

Ominously, at the far end of the room, a sixth row of cylinders was
under construction, and there was room for a seventh.

The room was virtually silent, but for a faint hum of air conditioning
and a regular, high-pitched hissing sound coming from somewhere in the
network of pipes.  There was a strange, acrid smell in the air.

"We need to get down there and check what's in those things," whispered
Tuxedo Kamen.

Moon gave him an incredulous look.  "Can't you guess?"

"Of course.  But we need to be sure," he insisted.  "Sailor Moon, you
can't afford to be so headstrong, not when so much depends on this."

She huffed.  "Fine," she snapped.  "We were going to go down anyway."
After a heartbeat, in a disgusted tone, she added, "*Father*."

"Ouch."  Shaking his head, he retired to the back of the group.  But,
Venus noticed, he was smiling.

Moon started forward once more, her scowl fading to a determined look of
concentration.  As she reached one of the staircases leading down to the
ground, she gestured toward the others: *spread out*.  Jupiter gave her
a quick nod and moved on past, heading further around the catwalk.
Unsurprisingly, Mercury followed her.  Venus paused, having a sinking
feeling that she knew what was about to happen.  Sure enough, Uranus'
lips tightened, and she turned to head in the opposite direction.  As
she went, she threw one piercing, defiant glance at Venus.

Sailor Venus breathed a silent sigh.  It was tempting to stay out of it.
She didn't need to pick sides; she could stay with Moon and Tuxedo Kamen
quite easily.  For heaven's sake, if she did have to choose, her
sympathies were all with Jupiter anyway.  But ...

But somehow, she found herself following Uranus anyway.  Why, she could
not have said.  Perhaps it was out of some lingering sense of loyalty,
or an instinct for teamwork.  Or perhaps it was simply that she couldn't
stand to watch the girl go off, all alone.  Because Uranus would do it,
Venus was quite sure of that; she was the stubborn sort, and she was
clearly not going to give in.  So maybe that was the reason. Or if not
that, then maybe ... well, maybe a lot of things.  In the end, grumbling
to herself and more muddled than ever, Venus trudged along the catwalk
behind Uranus and tried to remember why she had ever agreed that coming
to this building was a good idea in the first place.

So, moving quietly but quickly, they filed down to the floor level in
three groups: Moon, Tuxedo Kamen and the cats; Jupiter and Mercury; and
Uranus and Venus.  Sailor Moon reached the bottom first, and the clack
of her heels on the floor tiles seemed startlingly loud.

Uranus muttered something under her breath.  Venus could not quite catch
what she said, but it sounded something like, "... easy."

 From this distance, they could all see that the cylinders were not  
plain
metal.  Broad sections on the surface of each one were grooved and
fitted into recessed tracks.  They looked to Venus as though they could
slide open, like enormous shutters.  As she was still taking this in,
Sailor Moon walked boldly up to one of the cylinders and touched it.
Then, one eyebrow raised, she leaned close, pressed an ear to it, and
listened.  "There's something inside," she announced in a low voice.
"It sounds kind of ... liquid."

"I don't like this," said Tuxedo Kamen.  "It feels wrong."

"Yes," whispered Uranus.

"Wrong?"  Moon stared at him.  "What are you talking about?  This is
exactly what we were looking for.  It's proof that we were right!  And
you were just saying, two minutes ago, that we needed a closer look!"

"Yes," he began, "but --"

"Well, look!" she said.  "Here it is!"  She stepped neatly around him,
bending for a moment to look at the control boards around the cylinder.
Then, without hesitation, she reached out and pressed a button.

With a low, faint rumble, the shutters on the cylinder rolled apart to
reveal a heavy glass window.  The cylinder was a tank after all, and
they could all see the thing that floated inside.  Involuntarily, Sailor
Moon let out a cry of shock and stepped back.

The tank was filled with a murky liquid.  Thankfully, this concealed
some of the details; but even so, the form in the centre was all too
visible.  It might, perhaps, have once been a human being, but now there
was little humanity left.  There was no way to tell if it had been a man
or a woman; it looked as if it had been ripped apart and then welded
back together, almost at random.  Where there should have been a torso
covered with smooth skin, instead they could see a tattered mass of
mottled flesh, twisted and mangled into a network of bizarre shapes.
 From a dozen places, it wept streamers of a thick black fluid.  Exposed
loops of ropy organs hung out of it, and here and there, great knots of
some dark, shapeless material were fused into the flesh, glinting dully
in the light.  One arm was missing; the other seemed to have been
stretched out fantastically, like a long, spindly spider's leg.  The
last metre or so was bifurcated, and the two ends were twisted, boneless
things, devoid of anything like hands.  Its legs were similar horrors,
grotesquely distorted.

Its eyes were open, and it was staring at them.

"Oh, by the Lady," swore Uranus in horror.

"It -- it's alive," choked Moon.  "And it's in agony."

The taste of bile was strong in Venus' throat.  Even as she watched,
unable to look away, the thing in the tank stirred; the ends of its
remaining arm twitched feebly, once or twice.  That was too much for
her, and Venus stumbled away from the tank and threw up.

When she was finished she tried to stand up once more, but her legs felt
like jelly.  She felt a hand on her shoulder and looked up to see Tuxedo
Kamen, watching her compassionately.  For an instant she thought she saw
another face behind his mask, a boy she had met a week ago, but then the
moment was past, and the masked man was helping her rise.

"Are you all right?" he asked gently.

"Sorry," she mumbled, flushing and looking down.  "It's just -- that --
how can you *stand* it?  It's too ... too ..."  Guiltily, her eyes
flashed back to the tank, and then away once more.  Another horrible
thought came to her.  "So many of them," she said in a low voice, waving
a hand around the room.  "They can't all be like that, can they?  Can
they?"

A few steps away, Moon and Uranus froze.  Almost simultaneously, they
looked around, each in a different direction.  Then, to Venus' horror,
Moon walked quickly over to a second tank and pressed a button on its
control board.  Her face pale and her lips tight, and she walked
stiffly, as if she were struggling to control herself, but there was no
hesitation at all in her actions.

The second tank began to rumble open, and Venus turned her head away.  A
moment later, unable to help herself, her eyes returned to it guiltily.

This one was not so bad.  Or, perhaps, it might have been worse; because
the transformation of the figure within was almost complete.  A massive,
hulking crystalline form hung there in the centre.  It was turned half
away from them, but as the shutters rolled apart and the light fell on
it, it turned its head toward them.  Then Venus saw the last shred of
humanity left to it, and maybe the cruellest trick: for its eyes were
still unchanged.  They were a clear brown, and they stared at her out of
a frozen crystal mask.

It knew what had been done to it, she realised.  It knew; and Sailor
Moon was right.  It was in agony.

Another rumble, and she looked around to see Jupiter at a third tank.
She started to cry out in protest -- [Stop!  No more!] -- but it was far
too late.  Even as the shutters began to part, there came a sudden,
heavy thud, and something struck the glass of the window, hard, from the
inside.  Jupiter leaped away with a startled shout.

This one had just begun to change.  It was a young man, naked.  The skin
over his left shoulder and chest was beginning to darken and pull away
from the flesh beneath, and his left hand was thickening into something
club-like, but otherwise he still looked human.  Human, and in torment.
He was in a frenzy; he beat on the inside of the tank, his mouth opening
and closing in a silent scream.  Was it pain?  Rage?  A plea for help?
There was no way to tell.  With a shudder, Jupiter touched the control
pad once more and the shutters rolled back.

"This is sick," said Sailor Mercury in a low, breathless voice.  Her
face was ashen.  "I ... I never dreamed it could be like ...  Oh, gods,
we have to help them somehow!"

Jupiter made a helpless gesture.  "How?" she asked.  "How?"

Sailor Moon, looking no less sick, answered.  "You know how," she said.
"There's only one thing we can do for them, isn't there?"

"You're supposed to be able to *heal* them!" burst out Venus.

"I wish I could," replied Moon, staring back at her; and Venus saw the
sorrow in her eyes.  "But how?  If I had the Ginzuishou -- and if I knew
how to use it -- but I don't.  I'm sorry."  She turned back toward the
tanks, and a note of grim resolution entered her voice.  "But we can
stop them hurting, at least."

"No," said Uranus.

"What?" said Moon, startled.  "Can you think of another way?  Then --"

"It's not going to be that easy," Uranus interrupted.  She was looking
around the chamber, her eyes narrowed.  "Didn't I tell you, before?  You
think we're going to march in here and destroy them all, just like that?
Can't you see it?  We've been set up."

Moon paused, just for an instant.  She began, "But we *did* march --"

"Where are the alarms?  The guards?" demanded Uranus.  "Why hasn't
anyone realised we're here yet?  Come *on*!  They'd never leave
something as important as this unguarded!"

"She's right," said Tuxedo Kamen.  His voice was smooth, unruffled; but
all at once, his posture had become tense and alert.  His cane was in
his hand, and now he held it like a sword.  "We got in here much too
easily.  It's got to be a trap."

And a voice from above said, "*At last.*"

They looked up to see Lady Blue, hovering in midair above them.  Her
face was alight with mockery and malice, and the jewel in her forehead
crackled with power.

"Are these really the best you can come up with, moon girl?" she
sneered.  "They catch on so slowly, don't they?"  Her grin widened.
"But that's all right.  I'll make sure they get a proper greeting
anyway." She lifted a hand and snapped her fingers.

Double doors crashed open, and a pair of vitrimorphs stalked in from
each end of the room.  And Lady Blue smiled.

"Let's party."

                                  --**--

Sailor Moon gazed up at the woman floating above her, deliberately
paying no attention to the quartet of crystalline monsters marching down
the room.  She had never seen Lady Blue before, but the woman was
unmistakable from the others' descriptions.  Moon could almost feel the
power radiating from her, cold and malign.

"Why are you doing this?" she asked.

Lady Blue laughed out loud.  "You pitiful fool.  You don't even know
*what* I'm doing."  She made an imperious gesture and the vitrimorphs
froze in place, only a few metres away.  "I'll tell you one thing, at
least.  You're here too early.  I don't know how you found this place so
soon, but I'm afraid we can't quite spare it yet.  If you want it," she
went on with a sneer, "you're going to have to pay."

The contempt in her voice finally made Moon's temper start to burn.  "Do
you think you can stop us?" she shouted defiantly.

Another one of those infernal mocking laughs.  "Wrong question, girlie.
Do *you* really think you can stop *me*?"  Lady Blue snapped her fingers
again, and one of the vitrimorphs began to advance once more.  "Let me
introduce you," she said.  "This is Komiya Shingo.  He's twenty-two
years old, bright, intelligent, with a good sense of humour.  He's got a
girlfriend that he's planning to marry, and she's pregnant with his
first child.  Oh ... and he's going to kill you.  In about thirty
seconds."  Her grin widened, shark-like.  "And would you like to know
how Shingo-chan came to be here, moon girl?  He was convicted of
shoplifting.  He was out of work, and he and his girlfriend needed food.
They gave him a three-month sentence.  Very sad."

Her smile became open gloating.  "So go ahead, girl.  In the name of the
Moon, punish him!  Murder him -- before he murders you."

Defiantly, Sailor Moon removed her tiara and energised it, ready to
throw.  The vitrimorph was very close now, and there was no chance that
she would miss.  It was tragic, anyone would agree, but she had no
choice.  It was kill or be killed.  She had to do it, that was all.

She drew her arm back to throw ... and froze.  [Murder him,] Twelve had
said.  She was about to kill an innocent man.  Well, no, not innocent,
but ... a shoplifter?  That was all?  He had to die, for *that*?

Her own blithe words of earlier came back to her: [Are we guilty?  Or is
it the Council?]  And: [We can stop them hurting, at least.]  In her
mind's eye she saw again the young man in the tank, just beginning to
change: the rage and the agony in his face, and the terror.  He had
known what was happening to him, and there was nothing he could do.

She felt sick.  She had been so sure of herself!  Now she was certain
again: certain that she had been wrong.  No matter what they had done,
they did not deserve to die.

The vitrimorph was right on her now, its arm raised to strike.  Suddenly
afraid, Moon fell back half a step, and then half a dozen.  And then she
felt a hard, unyielding wall behind her, and knew she could go no
further.  No way out.  And all the while, the vitrimorph that had been
Komiya Shingo advanced.

There was still time; she could still do it.  She could kill him.  She
could murder an innocent man.

She could not.

She was going to die.

The moment stretched out.  She could see every detail, as if in slow
motion.  The other Senshi, horror in their faces: just beginning to
come to her aid, and yet far too late.  Tuxedo Kamen, her father in
another life, lunging toward her with a soundless cry; but again, much
too late.  The sallow face of Lady Blue, bathed in the cold glow of the
jewel embedded in her forehead, twisted into an expression of avid
anticipation.  The glossy, translucent crystal of the giant figure
standing over her.  The light, glinting off its arm as it lifted a
fraction higher, and then began to descend.  And, just visible through
the translucent crystal ... something moving, high up above. Then a
voice.

"Dead Scream."

And a whirlwind of power that slammed down into the vitrimorph and
blasted it into shards.

She had time for one incredulous glance up at the catwalk, at the tall,
elegant figure in green and black who stood there, beyond all possible
hope, hand still raised in her attack posture.  Had an instant to take
in Lady Blue's face and see a flash of unexpected pleasure there.  Then
the other vitrimorphs were charging toward her.

She had no more time to consider.  Her nerves were on a knife-edge, and
as the crystalline army began to surge forward she released her tiara
without thinking.  It spun away and carved a chunk out of the arm of
another monster.  Around her, the other Senshi cried out their own
attacks ... and, at last, the battle was joined.

                                  --**--

Seki watched it begin from a hidden vantage point on the catwalk.  She
had entered the building at a sprint, racing down the long corridor to
deliver a warning; but by the time she arrived, it was too late.  Lady
Blue was already there with a quartet of giant crystalline allies, and
there was nothing Seki could do but watch.

Her heart was pounding, her stomach in her mouth as she watched the
confrontation below.  She saw the vitrimorph advance; saw Sailor Moon
fall back before it, unable or unwilling to attack.  She saw Lady Blue
throw her head back and laugh.  And she saw a figure from the ancient
past step calmly out onto the catwalk, barely a dozen paces away, and
without hesitation raise one imperious hand and fire down into the
chamber, blowing the vitrimorph to atoms.

The sight brought a rush of mixed feelings.  Sadako had told her that
she could still transform, but seeing it for herself was another matter.
It was ... haunting.  Frustrating.

Sailor Pluto, for her part, showed no sign of relief or satisfaction at
the destruction she had caused.  She turned her head and regarded Seki
for a long moment.  Then she nodded once, and turned her attention back
down into the chamber.  Into the arena.

Down below, Lady Blue was staring up at the catwalk.  She was not
laughing any longer; her face was terrible.  As the other figures on the
floor of the room surged into action, Lady Blue lifted higher into the
air, rising rapidly up to the level of the catwalk.  She stopped there,
floating a few metres away from Pluto.

The two of them gazed at each other in silence.  To Seki, watching, it
seemed as if they were ancient Roman gladiators, sizing one another up.
Ready to strike.

She wondered if she would survive, when they finally moved.

                                  --**--

Jupiter dodged a blow and fired another Supreme Thunder at an enemy to
her right.  All things considered, the battle was going reasonably well.
These vitrimorphs were moving scarily fast, but she was almost used to
that by now.  In addition, both sides were avoiding hitting the tanks.
It meant that there was a lot of cover in the room, and the Senshi were
able to take full advantage of it.

There had been a bad moment, true, back at the start, when Moon froze,
unable to bring herself to fight.  Jupiter could not blame her; it was a
terrible position, faced with the reality of killing like that.

But then that unlooked-for help from above.  Had Jupiter really heard
correctly?  Could *she* have come back from the unknown, after so long?

No time to ponder.  She avoided another blow by leaping on top of a
nearby tank, and firing another shot while she had the good vantage
point.  An instant later she plunged down to the floor again as a bolt
of energy sizzled past, nicking off a lock of her hair.

Off in the distance she heard a shattering sound and a shout of triumph,
and turned her head in time to see a vitrimorph reel back, a rose
embedded in its shoulder.  The same motion brought Sailor Uranus into
view, and Jupiter's answering shout of encouragement died stillborn.

Uranus was having trouble, that was clear.  Her attack was powerful, but
to be effective she had to hold it on one of the crystalline monsters
for some time.  That was hard to do in a battle like this.  Jupiter
shrugged and kept moving.  She was not quite petty enough -- or stupid
enough -- to wish Uranus bad luck, but Jupiter had her own problems.
Uranus would have to fend for herself.

She fired yet another Supreme Thunder and followed it up with a flying
kick that caught her target right where her lightning bolt had struck.
She was rewarded with a ringing crack, and a wedge of crystal broke
clean off the vitrimorph's leg.  She grinned as she cartwheeled away
from a new enemy's attack.  The odds were improving.

                                  --**--

Venus ducked back behind a tank, heart pounding.  All the while as the
battle began, she had waited for Lady Aino to take over, for the rush of
confidence and the wild, almost manic exultation in her powers.  But it
never happened.  She was alone: she, McCrea Beth, stuck in the body of a
Senshi in the middle of a firefight.

At first, all she could do was dodge.  She had Venus' quick reflexes, at
least, and her hair-trigger constant awareness of her surroundings.   
What
was missing was the will.  The drive.  The *heroism*.

It took some time before she could work up the nerve to try her attack.
When she finally did, as a last resort against a monster that was about
to flatten Tuxedo Kamen from behind, she was genuinely surprised that it
worked.  It seemed that she had all the abilities of the real Venus ...
except for the mindset.

A roar came from her left, and she dropped to the floor to avoid an
energy bolt thrown by a vitrimorph.  Without rising, she rolled around
another tank, grimacing in anticipation of a new attack that never came.
Instead, nearby, she heard Mercury shouting, and the sharp crack as a
spear of ice struck home.  The sound of the battle shifted, drawing away
from her for a moment.

She paused there, kneeling in the lee of the tank, trying to muster the
courage to move again.  No doubt if she were the real Sailor Venus she
would leap up, handspring off the top of the tank, fire a couple of
Love-Me Chains in midair to help distract the enemy, and land ready to
attack once more.  She could picture the moves perfectly; her palms
tingled in anticipation.  She looked up, eyeing the angles, and even
drew herself into a crouch, ready to jump.

But of course she did not move.  She was no acrobat, not like Venus.

Thudding footsteps came from nearby.  A vitrimorph, drawing closer.  The
battle was coming in her direction again.  She stood, peering cautiously
around the side of the tank.  Now, what would Bendis tell her to do?
Fight like a cat, probably.  Fat lot of good *that* was.  And where was
Bendis, anyway?  She and Artemis had vanished at the start of the fight.
Very sensible of them; Venus wished she could do the same.

Why did it have to be so hard to destroy the monsters, anyway?  They
hadn't been so tough back at the beginning.  Back then, all you had to
do was hit the third eye.  But then the things started coming in all
sorts of different shapes, and lately, the Senshi didn't even bother
trying.  Bringing them down with sheer firepower was easier.

The vitrimorph came into view around the side of the tank, and to her
surprise she saw that this one actually *had* a third eye.  Right there,
in front of her.  And before she realised quite what she was doing --
before she had a chance to lose her nerve -- she stepped out directly in
front of it, aimed, and shouted.  "VENUS LOVE-ME CHAIN!"

Love-me Chain.  Not Chain Thing.

To her utter astonishment, the chain struck squarely home with a crash
of releasing energy, and the vitrimorph froze -- and then its entire
head shattered into a dozen pieces.  A second later, Moon's tiara caught
it in the chest and reduced what was left of it to flinders.

Venus was still standing there, gaping, when she heard a cry of warning
from nearby, and then the high-pitched chiming of Uranus' Music of
the Spheres singing right past her ear, making her teeth ache.  Then a
heavy pounding sound, directly behind her, as the vitrimorph that had
been about to club her down leaped away from the ultrasonic attack.

An instant later, Uranus grabbed her by the arm and pulled her to cover.
The two of them stood there for a few seconds, breathing hard: Uranus
from exertion, and Venus from the sudden realisation that she had almost
been killed.

After a moment, Uranus lifted her head and looked over at her.  "You're
... not so wild today," she panted.

"Uh," said Venus.  "I ..."

Uranus gave her a quick smile.  "It's an improvement," she said.  Then,
with a glance around, she nodded and sprinted off once more, leaving
Venus looking after her with her mouth hanging open.

Now what did *that* mean?

                                  --**--

High above, Lady Blue spoke at last.  "Ancient One," she said.  All the
mockery and savage humour was gone from her voice.  There was scarcely
anything human left at all.

Pluto stirred.  "Am I speaking to a puppet," she asked, "or to the
puppeteer?"

"Does it matter?"

"I suppose not.  One is about the same as the other, with you."

"Of course.  You have been hiding from me for a very long time, Ancient
One.  Since your first betrayal.  Why have you chosen to show yourself
now?"

"Personal reasons," said Pluto.  "Nothing that has any bearing on our
dispute."

"Indeed?  I wonder."

Seki shifted uncomfortably.  She was close enough that Lady Blue could
easily have seen her, but all the floating woman's attention was still
on Sailor Pluto.  "So," Lady Blue said.  "Is it time for us to renew our
own battle, then?"

"You know better," Pluto replied.  "You've sealed me quite effectively.
There is nothing I can do to stand against you ... at present."

"'At present,'" repeated Lady Blue.  "But you are the Lady of Time.  You
span past, present and future.  How widely have you cast your webs, I
wonder?"

Her eyes flashed, and the jewel in her forehead began to pulse faster
and more brightly.  "Admit it!" she barked.  "You are the eternal
plotter.  You always have some kind of plan.  Why did you come here?
What new twist are you setting into play?"

As she spoke, she reached out and closed her hand on nothingness.  Pluto
jerked and stiffened.  An instant later the Senshi floated up into
the air, lifted by an unseen power.  She came to a stop within easy
arm's reach of Lady Blue, suspended far above the floor below.

"Well?" demanded Lady Blue.  "Answer!"

There was a hint of strain in Pluto's face, but she remained impassive.
She cocked an eyebrow at Lady Blue and said, "I hardly need a plan.  You
do enough plotting for both of us."  She glanced downward and added,
"Besides, the girls are doing very well for themselves without me."

"What?"  Lady Blue looked down, and cursed.  Only two vitrimorphs were
left, and the girls were mobbing them.  "Damn you!"  She made a throwing
gesture with her empty hand and Pluto was flung back, landing heavily on
the catwalk next to Seki with a grunt of pain.  Lady Blue lifted up a
fraction and glided forward, as if to attack; but then she paused.  The
anger faded from her face, and it became a blank mask once more.

"Well played," she said.  "That was the last of my reserves.  The
facility is yours."

Then something dark and malignant sparked in her eye, and she added,
"But not quite yet, I think.  There is the matter of punishment.  'Pour
encourager les autres.'"

With that she spun about in midair and darted away, dropping out of
sight toward the lower room.

Seki rose and ran forward to Pluto's side.  "Are you all right?" she
asked, reaching out a hand to help the woman up.

Pluto took it and rose, rubbing the side of her head with a distant
expression.  "She's easy to distract," she said thoughtfully.  "That's
worth remembering.  The human influence, I imagine."

Seki gestured below.  "You're not going down?"

"They hardly need any help now," Pluto replied.  "And in any case, it
really isn't why I came."  She hesitated for an instant, and then went
on, "This battle is the last thing I've seen.  The very last.  It
doesn't matter how hard I try, I can't look any further into the future
than right now.  After today, I ..."  She drew a long breath, then
exhaled.  "I thought I should come and see it out."

"... Okay."  Seki eyed her, not quite understanding.  But then she
shrugged, and let it go.  The enemy's words notwithstanding, the girls
should be able to handle it.  She stood there at the rail with Pluto,
watching it end.

And then, watching it all go horribly wrong.

                                  --**--

There were only two vitrimorphs left now, and it was obvious to Mercury
that they were not going to last much longer.  She grinned to herself,
marvelling at the turnaround.  Not so long ago, a single monster had
been incredibly dangerous -- just one of them had nearly killed five
Senshi at the mall -- and yet now it seemed that they were dropping like
flies.

What a difference Sailor Moon made.

She fired another Ice Spear at one of the remaining pair, missed, and
swore.  They were moving so fast!  It seemed as though the fewer there
were, the stronger they became.  That was strange, now that she thought
about it.  Unless there was only so much power to go around?  She'd have
to mention it to Artemis later ...

She ducked behind another tank, danced around the other side, and used
her own enhanced strength to kick the second vitrimorph in the side,
rocking it to its knees and making it an easy target for Jupiter, who
hit it dead centre in the face.  Easy as pie.  The sort of stunt Venus
usually pulled, in fact, when she was in cat mode.  Even as she thought
it, she caught sight of Venus, off to the side, firing her chain off and
missing badly.  Venus had been kind of quiet today, actually.  Mercury
wondered why.

No time to dwell on it, though.  The vitrimorph she and Jupiter were
double-teaming was down, but not out.  It opened its mouth and fired a
barrage of energy bolts, making both of them scramble for cover.  By the
time they emerged, it was on its feet again, just as fast as before.

Damn it!  She had to find a way to make it hold still, even for a
moment.  Venus could do it, with her chain, but she was pretty off her
game today.  The alternative was --

Jupiter wasn't going to like this, she thought with a flash of mordant
humour.

She looked around and found the girl she needed, not far away, and
gestured to her, mouthing the words, "Get ready."  At the same time, she
threw yet another spear at the vitrimorph, not damaging it but driving
it in the direction she wanted.  Across the floor, she signalled 'Ready'
to Jupiter, who gave her a quick, mystified nod.

The vitrimorph hit the spot she had wanted, out in the open for a
second, and right on cue, Uranus' Music of the Spheres struck it from
the side.  And it froze, just for an instant, the way they always did;
the way she had first noticed right back in that battle in the theatre.
Maybe it was the ultrasonics, making them vibrate in harmony.

The reasons didn't matter.  Before it could escape, she and Jupiter
attacked it from either side simultaneously; and under the force of the
triple attack it burst into a cloud of shards.

Jupiter and Uranus eyed each other.  Then Jupiter deliberately turned
her back and jogged away.  Damn it.

Barely half a dozen seconds later, they heard Sailor Moon's shout of
triumph from the other side of the laboratory, followed by a loud,
ringing crack -- and the battle was over.

Wrong.

Because here came Lady Blue, swooping down out of the eaves and looking
like she'd just eaten a bucket of prunes, and Sailor Mercury just knew
that things were about to take a turn for the worse.

                                  --**--

"A very pretty piece of work," called out Lady Blue with sour derision
as she descended toward them.  "My compliments to the chef."

"What are you talking about now?" demanded Sailor Moon.  She was hot and
tired and in no mood for nonsense.  "You lost, okay?  Accept it."

Lady Blue's lips parted in a twisted grin.  "Not so fast," she said.
"After all, you can't have too much of a good thing, can you?  And
there's still room for dessert."

"Wha--?"

Before she could finish, the woman in midnight blue flicked out a single
finger.  With a crack, something that looked like a spark leaped down
toward her.  It looked dim and feeble, but when it hit Moon felt a
massive shock, blinding, as if her whole body had been struck by some
inconceivable hammer-blow.  She could not keep from letting out a
single, strangled scream of pain.  Then her throat locked in spasm; she
could not even breathe.  Her eyes registered nothing but darkness for a
second.

Then the universe came back.  She sucked in air through a throat that
was suddenly raw.  There was a dim, greenish shimmer all around her and
she realised that was in the centre of some kind of glowing bubble.  In
another moment she saw that the bubble was floating several metres off
the floor.

She lifted a hand to touch the side, and found that it was slick, hard
and unyielding.  At the same time, it felt strange under her fingers.
Cold, and somehow sickly.

"And you," said Lady Blue, looking down toward the others.  "I think we
can do without your interference."

Another finger and another spark, and this time it was Tuxedo Kamen who
convulsed as he was hit, with a harsh cry of agony.  He reeled back and
slammed into the wall, then slumped to the floor, limp.  His mask and
top hat had been knocked away by the shock, and Moon could see his eyes,
half-open but unseeing.  There was no sign of an energy bubble this
time; he simply lay there: stunned, helpless.

"You see," Lady Blue said with deadly calm, "we've the retribution to
come, yet.  You and your friends have just caused me a great deal of
inconvenience, moon girl.  Now I think you can stand to lose one or two
of them ... as an object lesson."

And Sailor Moon watched in horror as, all around her, the tanks began to
open.

                                  --**--

A warning klaxon sounded, somewhere in the bowels of the building, and
Uranus tore her eyes away from the energy bubble holding Sailor Moon in
midair.  Now what?

She was answered as, with a hiss of escaping gases, the front half of
the tank next to her jerked and swung open.  A wave of thick, dark
liquid gouted across the floor and filled the air with a sharp odour, so
strong and sickly-sweet that it made her want to gag.

All around her, the rest of the tanks were doing the same.  The floor
was ankle-deep.  Here and there other things, more meaty and solid,
spilled out of the tanks too.  Uranus stared at them, revolted, and then
lifted her eyes once more.

The occupants of the tanks began to emerge.

In a way, the ones that died at once were the easiest to stand: the ones
that were far enough advanced in their transformations that they could
not survive as humans, but not so far gone that they could exist as
monsters.  They flopped or slithered to the floor, some in a splash of
dissociated flesh and organs, and lay there: a few of them thrashing for
a while, others quietly expiring.  It was terrible, it was sickening,
but she could ignore them; for the others were worse.  The ones who were
trying to kill her.

The woman, for example, who staggered out of a tank just a few metres
away, screaming in a voice still mostly human, but the flesh of her body
-- and especially her face -- ravelled and eroded away to the point
where it could barely contain what was within.  She came toward Uranus,
still screaming as she came, pieces of her falling off with every step,
and raised her hands and fired a bolt of energy.  It hit Uranus
squarely -- she was still too stunned and revolted to dodge -- but it
was so weak that it barely stung.  But it drained away whatever life was
left in the woman; she seemed to dissolve and wither from within,
collapsing to the floor in a wash of tank fluid and blood, and died with
a final wail.

There were more like her, ones who killed themselves in an effort to
attack.  But still, the monster factory had held fifteen tanks, and
fully seven of the proto-vitrimorphs survived to join combat.  Seven,
against four Senshi who could still act.

It felt like murder to Uranus, fighting back; far more than it had
against the fully mutated enemy.  A sick horror was on her, and every
time she struck back it grew worse.  She had to keep reminding herself
that these people were already dead.

She could not quite make herself believe it.

                                  --**--

Jupiter was appalled by the new attack, and sickened by the sheer cold,
malevolent callousness of it.  When the tanks opened, she was torn
between pity, horror and disgust at the unfinished, maimed things that
came out.  She held her fire at first, backing away from them as they
staggered forward.

Then they opened fire on her, and her reticence vanished.  What had been
done to them was dreadful, yes; they deserved compassion, not death.
But they were trying to kill her.

She shed no tears as she fought, but she remembered the discussion from
the meeting earlier.  What was happening here was not their fault, or
hers.  The Council were guilty; Lady Blue was guilty.  If Sailor Moon
was to be believed -- and Jupiter fervently hoped she was -- these
damned souls were dead already.  And if not ... it was impossible to
believe they could be healed.  Not after what had been done to them.

She had to keep telling herself that.

Still, despite the situation and its moral ambiguity, she actually began
the fight with some confidence.  She was tired, yes, but these new
vitrimorphs were only half-formed.  Only a few of them had survived to
fight at all.  They could not possibly be as strong as the fully formed
ones.  Their end would at least be quick.

Her self-assurance lasted right up until, as she dodged around a tank to
avoid a barrage of energy bolts, she ran head-first into a young man.

His face was twisted with fear and pain.  She had just enough time to
register that he was naked.  Then he lifted his hands to clutch at her.
"Mamma, Mamma," he sobbed.  "Help me.  Oh, Mamma, make it stop.  It
hurts.  It hurts!"

Shocked, she reached out to comfort him, still trying to fathom what he
was doing here.  As she gathered him in, something nagged at her -- and
then, almost too late, she saw that the skin on one of his hands was
dark and mottled, the bones strangely misshapen.  Her mind flashed back
to the tank she had opened earlier, and its occupant, and she started to
struggle away; but he was crying again, holding her by her uniform
collar.  "Help me!" he begged her.  "Mamma, help me!"  He threw back his
head and howled, "It hurts.  It *huuurRTSSSS --*"

And as his scream rose into an unearthly, deafening wail, she saw his
eyes flash green, and a glimmer of green fire growing at the back of his
throat; and then a bolt of energy erupted out at her.

Jupiter threw herself to one side, barely in time.  The bolt passed down
her back, leaving a cut in her uniform and a dark thread of blood.  She
heard a heavy impact and looked around.  The young man was nearby, lying
face-down in the muck that covered the floor, spillage from the tanks.
Heart still pounding, and throat clenched by a dreadful pity, she
stepped toward him.  Was he dead like the others, drained and consumed
by the energy that had poured out of him?

He stirred as she reached him, and she froze.  Slowly, he rolled over
and dragged himself back to his feet.  Thick blood was oozing from his
nose and ears.  Then he stepped toward her once more, arms outstretched.
"Help me," he moaned.  "Please.  Oh, please."

Sailor Jupiter backed away from him, her eyes wide.  Then, unable to
bear it any longer, she turned and fled.

                                  --**--

Sailor Venus knelt on top of the tank in the far corner of the room,
trying to restrain her trembling.

She had thrown up twice more since the tanks opened, dodging a dozen
attacks, before retreating, shaking with horror, unable to bring herself
to strike back.  Monsters she could fight, but these ... these were no
monsters.  They were people; maimed people.

The real Sailor Venus might have been able to deal with this.  McCrea
Beth could not.

Below her, she watched as the awful, one-sided carnage continued.  The
proto-vitrimorphs were powerful enough, even half-unformed as they were,
but they were simply no match for the Senshi.  Uranus and Mercury were
fighting back -- grim-faced, looking sick as they fought, but they were
doing it -- and not many of the enemy got up again after taking a single
blow.

Murderers.  Lady Blue was turning them all into murderers.  Venus wanted
to cry.

A flickering light drew her attention.  Across the room, a bright
streamer of energy arced down from Lady Blue's hand to the floor.  Venus
tensed.  What new vileness was the witch up to now?

Nothing seemed to happen at first.  A few bubbles floated on the thin
layer of scum that covered the floor.  Slowly, Venus started to relax.
Her eyes flicked to Sailor Moon, still prisoner in the ball of energy
that hovered a couple of metres away from Lady Blue.  Moon was pounding
noiselessly on the interior of the ball.  Her lips moved, without sound.

Then Venus' eyes snapped back to the floor where Lady Blue's energy had
struck.  The liquid was bubbling harder; the surface was beginning to
swirl and roil.  Something glittered among the ripples.

Something ... crystal?

She looked around the room, alarmed.  Sailor Mercury was exchanging fire
with one of the more completely-transformed enemies.  Her face was grim
and tired, but she was slowly beating it down.  Meanwhile Uranus was up
against a monstrosity that still looked half-human.  Venus felt sick
again just looking at it, but Uranus was gamely battering away at it,
apparently trying to knock it unconscious rather than killing it.  Off
on the other side of the room, Sailor Jupiter had recovered from her
panic and was moving forward once more.  Artemis and Bendis were perched
halfway up one of the catwalk stairways, watching from a safe vantage
point.  Sailor Moon was a prisoner; Tuxedo Kamen was lying on the floor,
semi-conscious.  None of them had seen what Lady Blue was doing.

That just left Venus, who was hiding from the battle.  Cowering in a
funk.

[I can't do this.  I'm no hero.  I can't.]

Her eyes returned to the target of Lady Blue's new deviltry.  The whole
surface of the liquid around the spot was churning now.  More strands of
crystal surged up out of the morass, adding themselves to the shape that
was forming in the centre.  Fragments, Venus realised suddenly.  The
fragments of a vitrimorph.  Being drawn together again ... reassembling
themselves --

Even as she watched, the last pieces flew into place.  A burst of light,
white-hot, flared in the centre.  And a vitrimorph stood there, glowing
with heat where the pieces had fused together once more.

In the air above, Lady Blue threw back her head and let out a wild laugh
that sounded like a buzz-saw.

The new enemy looked different than before.  It looked as though it were
made of knives.  Its limbs, its body were jagged: covered everywhere
with razor-sharp edges and blades where fragments had not come together
perfectly.  They made a susurrus of clinking, jingling sound as it began
to move.  And its face: it was *broken*, crazed, everywhere a maze of
mismatched pieces, like a demented jigsaw that had been jammed together
by an idiot.

In a sudden moment of foreboding, Venus wondered if the same was true of
its mind.  Or whatever passed for a vitrimorph's mind.

It almost did not matter.  The others were busy ... and already, off in
the distance, she could see Lady Blue shooting another arc of brilliant
light down into the floor.  And then another.  Again, the liquid began
to boil and foam.

[I'm no hero.]

Sailor Venus closed her eyes.  Reached within herself for the strength
that she had once felt in battle, and found nothing.  Then she took a
deep breath and made her choice.

She leaped from the tank roof and went back to war.

                                  --**--

Horrified, Seki gestured down into the chamber.  "You've got to help
them!"

To her surprise, Pluto shook her head.  "I'm not here to fight," she
said once more.  "They have their chance.  It's up to them, not me."

"What?" Seki demanded.  "They're going to be massacred down there!"

Pluto did not answer at once.  "If I join the fight," she said at last,
her words slow and careful, "that woman will see it.  The Enemy will
take action.  He'll think he has no choice."

"Are you crazy?  What do you think he's *already* doing?!"

The older woman turned her head from the battlefield, looking Seki full
in the face.  "He's going easy on them," she said.  "Still.  Even now.
It may not look like it, but it's true.  He's still unsure of what I can
do, so he doesn't commit his full strength.  But if I join in -- if I go
up against that woman -- then he'll react.  He'll strike hard and fast.
And then he'll see how crippled I really am, and he'll have no more
reason to hold back.  He'll stop hesitating -- and there really will be
no hope."

"How ... crippled you are," Seki repeated.

Pluto scowled and said, "I am ... somewhat accustomed to being able to
see the future timelines when I fight."

"You can see every attack before it happens," Seki translated, and shook
her head.  "Yeah, I can see how that could be useful.  But now he's
blocked you, and you can't do it any more.  He's brought you down to the
level of the rest of us mere mortals!"

"Yes," said Pluto, her voice flat.  "And *he must not know*.  Do you
understand?  If he sees that, if he realises that I can no longer see
the future, he will think that he has nothing to fear --"  She broke off
and looked away again.  "They have a chance," she repeated.  "They can
win this.  If they dare."

"That's ... pretty cold of you.  You're staking their lives on a bluff!"

"Then tell me I'm wrong," Pluto said fiercely.  "Tell me you can see
more clearly, Rei.  If you can tell me that ... then I'll do it.  I'll
fight."  Her eyes almost seemed to burn.  "But be sure.  Be very sure,
Hino Rei."

Seki was silent for a long time.  Then, in a thick, low voice, she said,
"I can't."

Pluto nodded.  "I know."  She watched for a moment longer and added, "It
hurts me, too."

                                  --**--

The first new vitrimorph took Mercury by surprise, and very nearly
killed her before she had a chance to react.  She caught a movement out
of the corner of her eye, a dim reflection in the wall of a nearby tank,
and started to turn.  It moved her just enough that the blow merely
ripped her shoulder open, instead of gutting her.

Gasping in pain, she staggered to one side, dropping to one knee and
clutching her injured arm.  Her good hand came away covered with blood.
She stared at it for a fraction of a second.  Then, desperately, she
lunged out of the way.  The second blow hammered down right where she
had been.  If she hadn't moved, it would have smashed her skull like an
eggshell.

She lurched to her feet and sprang away, getting some distance between
herself and the new enemy before she paused to look back.  She blanched.
The vitrimorph looked like a walking razor blade.  Where the hell had
*that* come from?

It paused, almost as if it were relishing her dismay.  It opened its
mouth and let out a weird howl, and started toward her once more.  There
was something different in its manner, something quite unlike all the
vitrimorphs she had faced before.  Something almost ... avid.

Seriously unnerved now, Mercury fired an Ice Spear at it.  The monster
did not even try to dodge.  Her attack caught it squarely in the chest,
sending shards flying in a cloud of stinging fragments.  It seemed to
pay no attention at all.  It gave another howl, crouched down a little
-- and then blurred toward her.

This time Mercury saw it coming, but still she had no chance to dodge.
It was moving so *fast*!  Faster than she had ever seen one of them go.
It slammed bodily into her before she could begin to react.  The impact
felt like being hit with a brick wall, driving the breath from her
lungs.  If she had not just blown half the jagged edges off it, she
would have been cut to pieces.  Even so, she felt a dozen strands of
cold white pain searing across her body.  She would have screamed, but
she had no breath to do so.

The vitrimorph stood over her, one arm raised, one massive, spiked fist
clenched, ready to end her.  She could not move.  It stared down at her
with mad, triumphant eyes, and she could not move.  It began its strike.

The lightning bolt hit it from behind; the ultrasonic beam from one
side.  From above, a chain of glittering gold wrapped itself around its
neck, yanking it back.  Distantly, half-unbelieving, Mercury realised
that she was going to live.

The vitrimorph staggered under the three-way onslaught.  Another Supreme
Thunder struck home; another Music of the Spheres.  It could not dodge.
It let out a groan: not with its voice, but the sound of physical
material stressed almost to the breaking point.  But then its mouth
opened.  Mercury saw the glow inside and knew that it was going to fire.
She was lying flat on her back, helpless to dodge.  It could not miss.

Instead she lifted one shaking hand, pointed at it, and rasped out, "Ice
Spear."

Her attack caught it full in the mouth, a bare moment before it fired
its energy bolt.  Solid ice, razor-sharp and so cold that it was hard as
iron, slammed home into the middle of the energy ball.  It detonated,
still inside the vitrimorph's mouth.  It took the vitrimorph's whole
head with it.  A second later, its body followed.

Mercury lay there a moment longer, shaking.  Venus and Uranus hovered
anxiously in the background.  Then Jupiter bent down and reached out a
hand to help her up.  They stared at each other for a moment, not
speaking.

"You know, Hayashi," Mercury said, still panting, "there has got to be
an easier way to earn a living."

Jupiter started to grin back; but at that moment they all heard the
shout from overhead.  Seki's voice, taut with fear: "*Watch out, you
fools!*"

The four of them whirled and saw two more vitrimorphs stalking toward
them, as brutal and malformed as the last.  Mercury felt a ripple of
cold fear race down her spine.  This wasn't over yet.

Even as she watched, taking in the new situation and bracing herself to
begin all over again, she saw a streamer of light arc down from Lady
Blue's hand overhead.  Moments later, the scum on the floor began to
ripple as, unmistakably, the fragments of the enemy she had just
destroyed began to reassemble themselves.

No, it wasn't over.  It was still getting worse.

                                  --**--

Jupiter's legs felt rubbery, and her head swam a little when she moved
too fast.  She should not feel this weak; she remembered being so much
stronger.  But that was seven hundred years ago and another lifetime,
and right now she felt almost dead on her feet; and she had a battle to
fight: one she must not lose.  Only she was not quite sure, any longer,
if she could win this time.

She sneaked a look at the others out of the corner of her eye.  Sailor
Mercury was upright once more, yes, but she was a mess: bloody and
swaying on her feet.  Worse, there was a look in her face that matched
what Jupiter was feeling.  Mercury was not beaten, she had not
surrendered ... but she was no longer confident that they would win.

Then there was ... well.  There was Uranus.  Jupiter grimaced.  Truth to
tell, right now she was too tired to feel anything much about Uranus.
The girl was there, and she could still fight -- and there was no sign
of tacit defeat in her stance.  She was tired, but still ready.  Right
now, that made up for a lot.

That just left ... wait.  Where was Sailor Venus?

Jupiter had no time to wonder.  With the same uncanny speed that the
first rebuilt vitrimorph had shown, the next two surged forward.  She
had no time to do anything but dodge, and her best speed was barely
enough.  A jagged blade of crystal jutting out of its arm sliced a thin
line of pain across her shoulder, but she flipped clear of anything
worse and hit the monster in the back with a Supreme Thunder.

The bolt did no visible damage, but it made the vitrimorph light up with
a pale blue glow.  She snarled at the sight, and got ready to fire
again.  Before she could do so, she saw something shift in the
reflections from its crystalline body -- felt a subliminal warning
tingle of danger -- and dodged without thinking.  An instant later, a
many-bladed arm swept through the air where she had been, and the
vitrimorph that had been right behind her let out a bellow of rage.

She backed away from the pair of them, ready to dodge.  Where were the
other Senshi, dammit?  And why hadn't Pluto joined them?  And what the
hell had happened to Venus?

The two monsters began to stalk toward her and she watched them warily,
ready for the sudden rush of speed.  As the glowing one moved, as its
body flexed, she saw lines of brighter blue open and close all across
its form.  Her mind raced.  Was she seeing a brighter light coming from
within, from the places where it had been fused together?  Borders
between slabs of crystal, parting for an instant and then rejoining?  If
so -- if the thing hadn't been welded all the way back together -- then
it might be more fragile than before.  It might help ...

She saw Mercury and Uranus about to hit the creature in a pincer move,
and timed her own attack to strike at the same moment.

"Supreme Thunder!"

For an instant she thought it was going to work.  The vitrimorph glowed
even brighter, almost dazzling, and its body seemed to sag.  Then it
straightened up and surged toward Uranus.  She dodged out of the way,
just barely, and it whirled to begin a new attack.

This time, when it moved, there were no more of the blue lines.  It had
healed itself somehow.  Or, even worse, her own lightning bolt had been
the energy source that finally fused it together.  She had done nothing
but strengthen it.

 From behind, she heard a harsh bellow.  A third reanimated vitrimorph,
coming to join the fight; and overhead, she saw Lady Blue begin working
on a fourth.

In the pit of her stomach, she realised the truth.  The Senshi weren't
going to win this battle.  Not without a miracle.

                                  --**--

Venus had ducked out of the way again after helping to save Mercury.
Maybe it was the coward in her, but one thing was becoming clearer by
the second: they could not win this fight.  Somehow, somewhere, they had
to find another way.  Her eyes roamed the chamber, searching for
something -- anything -- that might change the odds.

There was nothing.  They were alone, and alone they were going to die.

[I don't belong here.]

She looked up, to where Seki and Sailor Pluto watched them.  Seki's
agony, unable to act, was clear in her face.  Pluto, in contrast, was
cool, unreadable.  Her eyes met Venus' for an instant, and Venus almost
thought she saw a message there; but then Pluto looked away.  Over to
where Lady Blue floated in midair, laughing with dark malice as she
worked to raise yet another vitrimorph.

Venus turned her head away with a shudder.  Her gaze fell instead on
Sailor Moon, still trapped, helpless, in her energy bubble.  Moon's face
held an agony to match Seki's.  She pounded the wall of the bubble
soundlessly, her mouth opening and closing in silent desperation.  No,
there was no help coming from that quarter.

[I'm not Sailor Venus.]

Venus looked down, to where Tuxedo Kamen had fallen.  He was moving now,
climbing to his feet; but he was still almost helpless.  He had to
clutch at the side of a tank to stay erect.  No help there either.  No
help from anywhere.

[Lady Aino, where are you?  Minako-sama, please, help me!]

But there was no answer, and she realised that none was ever going to
come.  She was indeed alone: she, and the other Senshi, and an endless
number of enemies.  She grimaced, and brushed hair that was lank with
sweat out of her eyes.  If there was nothing else, at least she could go
down fighting with her comrades.  For whatever that was worth.

A vitrimorph lumbered past her hiding place, followed by a bolt of ice
that was a fraction of the size of those Mercury had been firing when
the battle began.  Venus took a deep breath and crouched down, as Bendis
had taught her, ready to spring.

And then a strange thought came to her.  She looked back up at Sailor
Pluto, on the catwalk above, and followed the woman's gaze.  Not to Lady
Blue, after all, but to Sailor Moon: trapped in a bubble of energy.

Energy.

Just like that, Venus saw what she could do.  Not a feline manoeuvre; a
human one, so very human.  Almost automatically, she judged the angles
and saw that she had a chance.  It was just barely possible.

A moment later, she realised what the cost would be.  She closed her
eyes for a second, and let out a breath she hardly knew she had been
holding.

[I'm sorry, Bendis.  I don't think I can be a cat any more.]

Then she moved.  First, leaping up to the top of the tank next to her,
and then across to a second.  She was no Venus, but she remembered how
it felt, to move with that effortless grace.  She, McCrea Beth, could
do this.

There was no room for error with this next part.  She had to hit her
target absolutely dead centre, or she would slip and fall.  An
impossible task, nearly; but she had done something like this before,
back at the fire in the department building.  Oh, yes, she had learned
her lessons.

She fired her Love-Me Chain and it wrapped itself smoothly three times
around Sailor Moon's bubble, as neatly and as easily as a dream.  She
really had gotten good at controlling the thing; it was almost a pity,
actually.  The far end of the chain snaked back to her, and she caught
it and hooked it onto the tank she was standing on.  She saw Lady Blue's
eyes snap around to follow her, but the woman took no action.  Why
should she?  Nothing Venus was doing could possibly help.

Venus bet herself that Lady Blue would not have anticipated the next
part.

She leaped forward, still holding the free end of her chain, and swung
low across the room -- just as she had done once before, swinging
beneath an Opal in midair.  For an instant she felt again the yawning,
swooping sensation.  Then she landed on the top of another tank, on the
far side of the room.

This one was different from the others.  It had been damaged by a stray
lightning bolt, fired by Sailor Jupiter a few minutes earlier.  The
cluster of cables that rose from its top, up into the labyrinth above,
was smoking and emitting occasional clouds of sparks.

She glanced over her shoulder at Lady Blue, and saw that the woman was
finally realising what she planned.  But it was too late to stop her
now.  Venus had learned so much from Bendis: how to move, how to fight.
*Why* to fight.  But it was Uranus who had taught her the next part.

"Sorry," she whispered.  And then, "Good-bye."

She reached up and plunged the end of her Love-Me Chain into the cluster
of live cables.  Held it there with her gloved hand.  She felt a massive
shock up her arm and into her chest; felt her heart lurch once.

And then, nothing.

                                  --**--

Uranus saw it happen: Venus reaching out and touching the end of her
chain to the live cables.  She saw the flash; the Love-Me Chain,
lighting up with brilliant energy.  And the far end of it, wrapped in a
giant loop around Sailor Moon's prison bubble, blazed like a ring of
white fire.

The bubble flickered and winked out.

After that, things happened very fast.

Sailor Venus toppled slowly from the top of the tank, her body limp,
leaving a trail of smoke.

Sailor Moon dropped to the ground, landing awkwardly on one knee but
recovering quickly.  Her hand whipped up to her forehead, already
energising her tiara to attack.

Above her, Lady Blue cried out in fury and pointed down at Moon, ready
to direct some new attack at her.  Before she could complete the motion,
something flashed up through the air and hit her hand, sticking there.
She cried out again, this time in pain, and lifted her hand to stare at
the missile in disbelief.

A rose.  Tuxedo Kamen was on his feet: pale, wavering, but grim-faced
and determined.

An instant after that, Sailor Moon's tiara was whining upward in a
golden arc, directly at Lady Blue.  The floating woman gave an animal
snarl and threw up her other hand to block.

The tiara struck there and seemed to cling for a second, glowing
brighter and brighter.  Then, with a violent effort, Lady Blue flung it
away from her.  It hit the wall some distance off with a sharp crack and
ricocheted away out of sight.  Lady Blue was left hanging in the air,
still alive, her face black with rage.  One arm hung limp at her side,
dripping with dark blood from the rose that still stuck out from the
back of her hand.  The other hand was blackened and broken where the
tiara had struck.  But the malice in her eyes was undiminished, and the
jewel on her brow pulsed as if alive.

"Enough," she rasped.  "I am through with patience for you vermin.  This
ends, right now--"

Sailor Jupiter's Supreme Thunder caught her directly in the forehead.

The jewel ignited with a blinding flash and a noise that sounded almost
like a scream.  Then, with an ear-splitting crack, it broke in pieces
and tumbled away from her, trailing an arc of blood.

She spasmed in midair, writhing and shrieking, and fell.  As she
tumbled, a ripple of change seemed to crawl over her body; her midnight
blue uniform faded away, leaving pale flesh in its wake.  Then she
struck the floor with a flat crunch, and her voice ended suddenly.

Around the room, the four reanimated vitrimorphs froze.  Then, almost as
one, they began to topple over.  They seemed to disintegrate as they
dropped, coming apart in a multitude of glittering fragments that hissed
down into the thin scum that still covered the floor.

A long silence filled the room.

Then Jupiter punched the air, shouting, "Yes!"  Her face was smudged and
exhausted, her uniform stained, her hair limp and bedraggled, but the
triumph and relief in her eyes were unmistakable.

-- And behind her, Uranus saw one final figure shamble out from behind
the tanks on the far side of the room.  It was a young man, naked,
hunched over as if in pain, one hand tucked against his belly.  He came
toward the girl, staggering and reeling, his good hand outstretched as
if for help.  He opened his mouth, his eyes fixed on Jupiter, and Uranus
heard his moan ... and saw the flash of green light in his eyes, and the
fire gathering in his throat.

Uranus had never moved so fast in her life.  She had no time to think;
only act.  She fired her Music of the Spheres in mid-leap, hitting the
man in the side and jarring his aim.  His energy bolt cracked over
Jupiter's shoulder, missing her by mere centimetres.  An instant later
Uranus slammed into Jupiter, knocking the girl out of the way.  Jupiter
cried out in surprise.  The two of them hit the floor in a sprawl, but
Uranus was still moving.  She rolled upright and fired again, and this
time she hit the young man squarely.  He froze, fell, and lay still.
Uranus sank back to her knees, panting.

When she looked up once more, Jupiter was standing over her, gazing down
at her with a strange expression.  Uranus got up and they stood, staring
at each other.

Then Jupiter's lips tightened and her eyes turned to the body lying a
short distance away.  "Him," she said quietly.  "I remember him."  She
let out a long breath.  "All he wanted was for his mamma to help him.
To make it better.  That was all."  She shook her head, glanced back at
Uranus, then turned and walked away.

Uranus glanced down at the body, not really understanding, then back up
at Jupiter's retreating back.  "Yes," she whispered, surprised at the
bitterness she felt.  "Thank you, too."

                                  --**--

Sailor Mercury barely noticed the drama between Jupiter and Uranus.  As
the last vitrimorph fell, she was hurrying over to the spot where Venus
had fallen.

It was not as if she'd ever felt particularly close to the girl.  They
were rivals, maybe, in an inane sort of way.  But what Venus had just
done to save them all ... that was so far beyond the bounds of anything
Mercury could have expected that it simply took her breath away.  To do
that, to be willing to do that, for a group of -- not strangers, no, but
not exactly close friends, either -- well, it made Mercury wonder.  If
she had been in the same position, would she have done the same thing?
*Could* she have?  Would she have even thought of it?

She rounded a tank and saw Venus.  The girl was lying sprawled on the
ground, face down, not moving; she did not even appear to be breathing.
Her arm, her face and half her uniform were blackened, and there was an
ugly, dark red weal running from her hand up her forearm.  The air was
heavy with a thick burnt smell.

Mercury froze at the sight.  "No, dammit," she said.  "It's not fair."
Then suddenly, without quite remembering how she had got there, she was
on her knees, holding Venus by the shoulders and shaking her.  "No!" she
cried furiously.  "Come on, you idiot girl, you can't be dead.  You ...
you ..."  She broke off, lost for words, and finished in a whisper, "You
still have to show Ochiyo-chan how to do accounting, don't you remember?
You can't just die like this."

She heard a footstep behind her and looked around to see Sailor Moon
approaching, Tuxedo Kamen following just behind her.  Hot on their heels
came Bendis, yowling with alarm and grief.  The cat came to a halt by
Venus' head and touched her face with one faltering paw.  "Beth," she
wept.  "Beth.  Don't die; don't die ..."

Moon, for her part, took on a flat, unreadable expression as she saw
Venus' body.  She paused and her fists clenched once, then opened.  She
took a quick breath and started to say something --

And then Venus' eyes flickered and opened.  "Oh.  Hello," she said in a
blurred, muzzy voice.  "Did we win?"

Bendis hiccuped into silence.  Mercury said, "Uh --"

Venus blinked up at her, her eyes still vague.  "You aren't my aunt, are
you?"

Perhaps it was her sense of relief, or the stress of the moment, but
Mercury could not help it.  "Why, yes," she said.  "Yes, I certainly am.
Happy birthday, Beth-chan."

Venus gave her a dreamy smile.  "Thank you," she said, and blinked
again.  "Where's my cake?"

Behind them, Moon started to chuckle.  Mercury smiled back at Venus, and
then unceremoniously dropped her head to the floor.  It made a hollow
clunk.  "I think," she said, "my work here is done."

                                  --**--

Sailor Moon left Mercury and Venus to their horseplay.  Her eyes turned
to another part of the room, where one last task remained.  She looked
up at Tuxedo Kamen, and he nodded.  Then the two of them went warily
over to the place where Lady Blue lay.

The details became appallingly clear as they drew near and Moon froze,
her breath catching.  Just behind her, she heard Tuxedo Kamen's own
whistle of dismay.  From the corner of her eye she saw Jupiter, also
approaching, stop short with a gasp.

Moon swallowed, hard, and forced herself to go on.  To look down in
horror at what had become of their enemy.

A naked woman lay where Lady Blue had fallen.  Her body was twisted and
broken; but it was more than that, and worse.  She looked *wasted*.  Her
face was sunken, skull-like; her hair, a thin, matted ruin.  The flesh
on her body and limbs was all but shrunken away; her ribs protruded in
stark outline, plainly visible under a layer of skin that was so thin it
was almost translucent.  The breasts that lay over them were empty,
withered sacs of dry skin.

"God, she looks like she hasn't eaten for a month," whispered Tuxedo
Kamen.  "No, a year."

And this, too, was not over; for at the sound of his voice, the woman's
head jerked and turned, and she looked around with milky, half-blind
eyes.  "Who's there?" she said, her voice a thin rasp.  "Is that --"
She broke off with a dry cough that ended in a gasp of pain.  "Is that
Sailor Moon?"

Moon took a deep breath, and stepped toward her.  "I'm here," she said,
her voice not quite level.

The woman's head turned a little more toward her; and then those awful
eyes closed.  "Thank you," she whispered.

"What?"

"Thank you," the horror repeated.  "Oh, thank you for setting me free.
Free at last.  You don't know what it's been like ..."  Again she broke
off, in a series of coughs that seemed liable to shake her wasted frame
apart.

Then Moon understood, and without even thinking about it she went
forward again, dropped to her knees in the thin scum that still covered
the floor and gathered the woman into her arms.  "Hush," she said
gently.  "Don't try to talk.  You -- you're going to be all right."

The woman hardly seemed to hear her.  "I had such dreams," she said in a
voice that was cracked and more than a little mad.  "We all did, until
we met him.  Until he stole our souls."  Her eyes opened once more, and
this time she seemed to see Moon's face.  "I'm sorry," she whispered.

"Hush.  It doesn't matter.  It's over now."

The woman shook her head, the motion scarcely more than a twitch.  "No.
It's just starting.  And I *am* sorry.  About the new plan ... and the
innocent ones.  I'm sorry we hurt them."  She blinked up at Moon, her
eyes seeming to gain focus for a moment, and added, "I wish I'd been on
your side."

Moon shook her head and gathered her close, smoothing the hair away from
her forehead.  Chunks of it came away in her hand, but she gave no sign.
"Hush, Araki-san," she said.  "It's all right."

"It's so cold," Araki whispered.  "I just ... I just wanted to see the
sun again.  That was all."  Her gaze wandered away again, and her head
fell back against Moon's arm.  "Thank you," she said.  "Oh, thank you."
Her eyes closed, and she murmured, "I'm so hungry."

Then she died.


                             ****************


And, in the Council Chambers in the heart of the city, the voice of the
Master awoke in the chairman's mind, after so long, and told him what he
was to do next.

He closed his eyes in horror.  Then, slowly, moved to obey.


                             ****************


On the catwalk above, Pluto lowered her head.  "And so it is over," she
said.  She might have been discussing the time of day; it was only long
familiarity that let Seki notice the slight catch in her voice.  "From
now on, I am blind."

Seki nodded, and after a pause she touched Pluto's arm lightly.  There
seemed little point in offering condolences.  They had both known this
was coming.

"They're on their own, then," she said instead.  "No cryptic hints about
the future, just relying on themselves."  She gave Pluto a mordant
smile.  "Hell, it's like old times, back when we were fighting Beryl."

A snort.  "If you like."

"It's not over, of course.  They'd be fools to think so, and I know
they're not fools.  Now, they'll need to ..."  Seki thought about it.
"I'm not sure.  Moon has her own ideas, so I'm not sure what they'll
decide to do next."  She grimaced and added, "If they ask me ... I
suppose a good next step would be to look for the others.  Saturn,
Neptune ... they'd be a great help."

Pluto shook her head.  "I don't know about Neptune, but don't expect to
see Sailor Saturn again -- at least not soon.  The bloodline of Saturn
has been submerged for a long time now.  It is slowly moving to awaken
again ... but not yet.  It's still too soon.  In another generation or
two, perhaps."

With an incredulous look, Seki said, "What, this crisis isn't bad enough
to awaken her?  Or the Fall, for that matter?"  Her eyes narrowed.  "How
do you know so much about it, anyway?"

Pluto hesitated.

"Tell me, dammit!"

"Hotaru died without passing on her potential to an explicit heir,"
Pluto said tightly.  "She preferred not to make anyone else suffer the
way she did.  With her gone, and nothing to call it up, the Saturn Power
fell dormant.  I believe it began to revive during the Fall, but, ah,
something kept it from surfacing then.  Later, with all the mass deaths
that followed the collapse, it was driven underground again.  Now it is
building once more, yes, and I have an idea where it may surface ... but
not now.  Not yet."  Her lips compressed.  "And, yes, Hotaru and I
discussed it; but I had no idea that this crisis was ahead.  I could not
see it, because ... well, you know why."

"And you didn't think it was a good idea to *tell* anyone about this?!"

Pluto gave her a long, unhappy look.  "What would have been the point?"

Far too late, Seki remembered how close Setsuna and Hotaru had been.
Inwardly, she winced, but she did not let it deter her.  "*This* is the
point, damn you," she snapped, gesturing down into the chamber.  "Sailor
Venus being ready to sacrifice herself to save everyone, that's the
point!  And all the rest of them, fighting for their lives because they
know they can depend on --"

"On Sailor Saturn?" asked Pluto stiffly.

"No!  On *you*!  On us!  On -- on the whole *legend*!  Knowing that if
you're keeping important information from them, it's because it's
*important*, not just because you miss Hotaru!"  Seki took a deep breath
and let it out.  When she spoke again, her voice was calmer.  "I'll tell
you one thing, anyway.  This battle might have been the last thing you
could see.  But it's not the last vision *I've* had."

Pluto stared at her.  She seemed to stop breathing.  After a long time,
she said, "What, then?"

Seki seriously considered not telling her.  But in the end she swallowed
her anger and said, in a low voice, "A fireball in the heart of the
city.  And ... and an army of vitrimorphs marching through the streets."
She paused, realising.  "No.  Not vitrimorphs.  Crystites."

"Ah."  Pluto became still, her eyes hooded and distant.  "I see."

"Yeah.  So I'll tell you one more thing, Sadako.  It's time for you to
join the team again.  You may have been on Special Duties for the last
few thousand years, but now you've been demoted.  You're one of the
troops again ... and the next time there's a fight, you ought to be with
them.  Clear?"

Sailor Pluto gave her a faint smile.  "I'll take it under advisement,"
she said.  With a nod, she turned away and walked back out of the room,
leaving Seki alone.  Seki opened her mouth to protest -- and then closed
it again.  With a sigh, she went over to meet the weary girls climbing
up the stairs from the chamber floor.

                                  --**--

Jupiter and Moon had to help Tuxedo Kamen up the last of the stairs; he
was still too weak and shaken to make it all the way.  Behind them, in
turn, Mercury and Uranus supported Venus.  Venus kept swatting at their
hands and insisting that she could walk on her own.  Neither of the two
girls seemed to believe her.

In truth, Venus was secretly glad of their help -- even if one of the
helpers was Sailor Uranus.  Her head was swimming in a disconcerting
way, and her whole chest ached as if she'd been kicked there.  Her legs
were kind of wobbly, too.

But she was alive, and her idea had worked.  How about that?  It had
been a desperation move, but in spite of everything she had actually
succeeded.

She wondered what the real Venus, Lady Aino, would have done instead.

But that was something to think about later; to discuss with Bendis,
perhaps.  The cat was just ahead of her on the stairs, continually
pausing and looking back to make sure she was all right.  She did not
seem to realise that this meant that Venus was nearly tripping over her
every second step.

The cat meant well, anyway.  And it was nice to know that someone cared
that much about her.  Sometimes she had wondered.

In spite of herself, her mind went back to the last moments on top of
the tank.  Half in a panic, heart in her throat, because she knew what
she was about to do, and what the consequences would probably be.  The
other half of her, knowing that she could not find any other way out;
because there was only herself there, McCrea Beth.  The one who should
have been in charge was missing.

Mercury had been talking in her ear for some time, and Venus had been
ignoring the stream of chatter, but now something broke through and
caught her attention.  Mercury was saying, "-- getting kind of worried
about you, y'know.  I mean, you're usually kind of wild, but you were
fighting so badly today; I thought something must be wrong.  But that
last stunt ... that one was totally deranged.  You *must* be okay."

Venus froze on the step and looked around at Mercury, stricken.  Because
that didn't help at all.  That just made it worse.  It left the problem
that had been growing in her mind, the vital question, all the more
muddled.

Who was she?

                                  --**--

Sailor Moon paused at the top of the stairs, allowing Tuxedo Kamen to
step away and brace himself against the catwalk railing.  He was firmer
on his feet now, his face a healthier colour, but still he sagged a
little as she and Jupiter released him.  Whatever Lady Blue had hit him
with, it had been worse than the attack that she had used against Moon
herself.

She eyed him with some ambivalence.  Ally he might be, but he still
represented something that Moon would rather forget.  She did not want
a new 'father'; she was perfectly happy with the one she already had.
A masked figure hovering in the wings, waiting to protect her; that,
she wanted still less.  The idea was almost insulting.

And there was still the matter of that kiss.  Who did he see, when he
looked at her: his daughter, or his wife?  Or Mercury's friend Kin, for
that matter?

With a tiny shake of her head, she turned her back on him.  He was going
to have to learn his place, that was all.  This was a new age, and he
would just damn well have to adapt.

Seki was nearby, watching them with a concerned expression, and Moon
went over to speak to her.  "What can we expect next?" she asked without
preamble.

Seki seemed a little thrown by the question.  "Uh ... well, you ought to
leave.  Sooner or later someone's going to come and find all this --"

"No, no.  What can we expect from the enemy?  Araki-san said it wasn't
over; she said it was just starting.  And she mentioned some kind of new
plan.  What can we expect from the enemy?"

"Uh.  I've no idea.  Why would you expect me to?"  The woman's brow
furrowed.  "A new plan?  That doesn't sound good."

"Oh.  I saw you talking to Sailor Pluto, so I thought maybe she might
have said something."  With a sigh, Moon let herself relax.  "A heads-up
on what's next would have been nice."

Seki grimaced.  "In my experience, Pluto doesn't have much time for what
would be nice."

"Oh.  Okay."  A new thought occurred to Moon.  "Wait, that really was
Sailor Pluto?  The original one?"

"Uh, yes."

"Wow.  She doesn't look anything like her statue."  Behind her, Moon
heard Uranus choke suddenly, but she did not look around.

"Statue?"  Seki eyed her uncertainly.

"Never mind.  You're right; we ought to get out of here."  Moon turned
for a moment to look out and down, across the chamber.  "We've hurt them
today," she said slowly, "and they've hurt us too.  Nearly hurt us more
than we could afford."  Her lips tightened.  "Maybe you were right; we
shouldn't have come here."

"No," said Seki.  "After what I saw here ... it needed to be done; and
sooner, rather than later.  This was ... this place was an abomination."

"Yeah.  Maybe."  Moon was silent for a moment.  "Does it often get this
bad?"

"Truthfully?  Sometimes."

"Do you get used to it?"

"No."  Seki's voice was flat.  "Not if you want to keep your soul."

Sailor Moon cocked her head to one side, taking this in.  Yesterday, she
would have passed off Seki's words as melodramatic.  Now, she thought
that perhaps she understood them.  "Yes," she said.  "Thank you."

Then, raising her head, she looked around the others and said, "Okay,
everyone.  Sooner or later, someone's going to notice all this and sound
the alarm, and we're going to have company.  Let's move."

Venus gave her a tired grin in return.  "Yeah," she said.  "Home sounds
good."

"Right," agreed Jupiter.  "We need to get together again later to talk
about all this, but for now ..."  She glanced down at her uniform,
blotched and filthy and lined here and there with streaks of blood.  "A
bath might be nice."

"Motion seconded and carried," said Tuxedo Kamen with a smile.  He
released the rail and straightened up, motioning toward the door.
"Ladies ...?"

Sailor Moon frowned for an instant at the archaic chivalry, but let it
go.  He was something of an archaism himself, after all.  Instead she
led the way out of the ruined chamber.

She was tired herself, as it happened.


                             ****************


'S' Division was called out in force when the alarm came in: twelve
field agents and three full forensics teams.  The agents went in armed
for bear, at maximum alert.  Security-wise, the Tenshin Institute rated
very high -- though nobody was quite sure why.

The alarm was cancelled, very suddenly, two minutes before the teams
arrived at the institute facilities.  There was a lot of grumbling, and
some heated words exchanged with headquarters.  Word came down that the
institute security people were going to handle it themselves.  More
words, this time incredulous, were exchanged.  Nobody believed that the
institute would be able to cope, but in the end 'S' Division retreated.
They did it slowly.  It seemed pretty likely that they would be called
back anyway, when the institute boys fucked things up.

Hiiro did not retreat.  He and Kuroi disobeyed orders and went on in,
alone.

Captain Hiiro had been part of the squad dispatched to the institute,
but he had not been in charge.  It was the best Colonel Shiro had been
able to do for him.  Somebody high-up, it seemed, suddenly had it in for
Hiiro.

"Watch yourself," Shiro had told him in private before sending him out.
Hiiro, still smarting from the abrupt, unexplained transfer of Mitsukai
away from his team, had nodded in complete understanding.

Now, as he looked out over the incredible mess of the Tenshin Institute
laboratory floor, he had a whole new appreciation of the colonel's
words.  Something appalling had happened here, something far beyond his
experience.  Sailor Senshi or not, he did not like it.

"Shit," said Kuroi in a low voice.  "What went on here?  A butchers'
convention?"

"Let's find out."

They descended to the ground level and picked their way slowly through
the debris.  Nothing was moving, but there were enough corpses strewn
around, most of them deformed to some degree, to make both men cautious.

The deformations were horrifying in their own right.  Some of the bodies
were barely recognisable as human at all.  A lot of them, if not all,
looked to have come out of the giant tanks spaced around the lab floor.
What the hell had the Tenshin Institute bastards been up to?  After a
moment, Hiiro added to himself: [No wonder they didn't want us coming in
here.]

He gestured to Kuroi, who nodded, and the two began taking readings to
use to ID the bodies later: iris scans when possible, fingerprints when
not.  Some of the bodies lacked recognisable eyes or fingers, and Hiiro
took blood samples instead.  For a few damned souls, even that much was
impossible.

Some minutes later Kuroi called to him softly.  Hiiro went over to join
him, and together they stared down at the shrivelled, wizened corpse
that lay in a clear area of the floor.  This one was different from the
rest: it was not deformed at all, other than looking as if it had died
of terminal starvation; and somebody had laid it out with curious
respect, arms crossed over the sunken chest.

Also, Hiiro recognised it.  Even through the ghastly sunken features,
the skin that was almost transparent, he knew that face.  He had voted
for her once.

"It's Araki Mamiko," he said.  "Ryo, they've killed a Serry."

Kuroi threw him a startled glance, then examined the body more closely.
"Well, shit," he said at length in a reflective tone.  "I'd never have
... damn, Yoichi, there's going to be hell to pay for this."

"It doesn't make any sense," Hiiro muttered.  "Why would they have ...
what did they *do* to her?"  He paused, and his eyes narrowed.  "What's
this?"

There was an odd wound on the body's forehead: deep, almost like a
cavity, and perfectly circular.  He knelt to examine it more carefully.

"Where they hit her?" suggested Kuroi, bending down to join him.

"I don't think so.  This looks more as if it was made a long time ago."
Carefully, Hiiro reached out a finger.  "There's a lot of scarring;
looks like burn marks, but --"  He hesitated.  "Have you ever seen
frost burns before?  More like that.  And ... it's all healed inside.
Healed."

An odd thought came to him, then, and he looked around.  Then, ignoring
Kuroi's surprised query, he got up and widened his search.  A few metres
from the body, he found what he was looking for: a stone lying on the
floor.  It was a flattened disc, jet-black, and broken into three uneven
pieces, one of them little more than a narrow sliver.

He picked up the smallest piece and held it up to the light.  An instant
later he yelped in pain.  The splinter was so cold that it burned like
fire.  He dropped it to the floor again, shaking his hand -- and then
watched in disbelief as, in perfect silence, the stone evaporated,
subliming away into a cloud of dark mist and then vanishing utterly.

He looked at his hand again.  There was a dark mark on his finger,
rimmed with pale white.  Frostbite?  As he studied the spot, a tiny dot
of blood welled up in the centre of the mark.

Wiping his hand on the seat of his pants with a shudder, he pulled out a
plastic bag and a pair of tweezers.  He picked up the other two pieces
and dropped them gingerly into the bag.  They showed no reaction.  On a
sudden impulse, he touched the larger piece through the plastic.  It did
not feel cold.  It felt like a lump of stone, that was all.

Back at Araki's body, he held out the bag and compared the pieces to the
wound on her forehead.  They matched in size exactly.

"What is this, some kind of fairy-tale crap from the old days?" he said,
his voice hoarse.

"What are we going to do?" asked Kuroi, ever practical.  "Get that thing
analysed?  But normally we'd send it *here* for analysis."

"Yeah.  I think --"  Hiiro broke off.  What *did* he think?  "I think
we're going to get out of here before the Tenshin boys arrive, that's
what.  I think we're going to keep our mouths shut.  And you know what
else I think?  I think that in a day or two, somebody's going to
announce Araki-san's death in a tragic accident, or a sudden illness.
And there won't be any mention of the way her body looks, or of the
fucking Sailor Senshi, at all."

"You're saying ... this goes high up, then.  Maybe all the way to the
top."

"I'm saying that right now, you're about the only one in the world I
trust.  Maybe you and the Colonel."  Hiiro's lips tightened.  "Come on,
let's get out of this place.  If I smell that crap on the floor any
longer I'm going to throw up."

They left in silence.  A single video camera watched them go.


                             ****************


Seki pulled up outside the house on Sendai Hill, and Makoto climbed out
wearily.  Every bone in her body ached.  She felt as if she had been
thrown off the top of a mountain, and then had the mountain thrown after
her for good measure.  Dozens of cuts on her arms, legs and across her
back sent jangles of pain through her whenever she moved, as her clothes
brushed her skin.  She wanted nothing more than to take a long,
incredibly hot bath, and then throw herself into bed and sleep for a
week.  Possibly two weeks.

There was one small problem with that.  The problem manifested as two
people standing on the doorstep, watching her as she came up the path.

Fujimaro and Miliko.

Makoto paused as she caught sight of them, and then continued on.  What
else could she do?  She must have been quite a sight, though, judging
from the way Miliko's eyes widened as she approached.  Fujimaro was more
reserved, but he too was shocked; she had known him long enough to see
the signs.

She heard footsteps: Seki, coming up the path behind her.  The older
woman went up to the front door, stepping around the two on the porch
without a word, and opened the door.  She paused on the threshold,
giving Makoto a long, silent look, and then nodded once and disappeared
inside.

A long silence fell.  Makoto, Fujimaro and Miliko stared at one another.
Makoto waited for the others to speak, but neither of them did, and
after a little she realised that they could not think of anything to
say.  Then she realised that she could not, either.

Instead she stepped forward and pulled them together in a big, three-way
hug.  Their arms tightened around her and she knew she had gotten it
right.

"Come inside," she said.


                             ****************


Beth did not go straight home after they split up.  Instead, she and
Bendis went visiting.

In the wake of the battle, as they all de-transformed and stood around,
tired and sore, it was glaringly obvious that one of them was missing.
Under other circumstances Beth would have let it slide and simply asked
Iku about it the next time she saw her; but then Suzue started to make
pointed remarks about how Sailor Mars would not have been much help
anyway.  Beth stood it for a little while, and then quietly lost her
temper.  She announced, in a tone that brooked no argument, that she
would go around to Iku's house and find out what had been the matter.

That shut Suzue up, at least.  It also seemed to relieve Bendis, for
some reason; the cat had been looking quite shifty there for a while.
Before she could ask why, though, Dhiti suddenly volunteered to go with
them.  Beth could only blink at her in surprise, her anger forgotten.

It turned out that Dhiti knew where Iku lived, though how or why was a
mystery to Beth.  She was glad, however, because it made her remember
that she herself had no idea where the quiet girl lived.  (Although, on
second thought, Bendis might have known.)

She decided not to ask any more questions, knowing that getting straight
answers out of Dhiti could be complicated, and simply agreed.  The three
of them, two girls and a cat, were about to leave, when Suzue suddenly
insisted that she was coming too.

This was much less welcome.  Beth was trying to work out how to say so
diplomatically when Dhiti said, rather sharply, "Why?  Want to kick her
for not being holy enough?"

Suzue gave her an irritated look.  "Don't be ridiculous."  Her lips
tightened and she went on, "She should have been here.  If she's one of
us, she has a duty, and you know it."

Beth nearly lost her temper again, and said, "She might have a good
excuse, you know!  It could be something perfectly innocent."

"I know."  Suzue nodded, studying Beth with thoughtful eyes.  "That's
why I want to go.  Look, there's something weird about her; you know
there is.  I want to be sure.  I want to know that she can be ..."  She
hesitated.  "Relied on."

"Trusted?" probed Dhiti with a sardonic look.

"If you like.  Yes."

"Of course she can be trusted!" exploded Beth.

"Then where is she?"

Beth did not answer, simply glaring at her.  After a brief pause, Dhiti
said, "Let's find out."

"Yeah," echoed Bendis, almost inaudibly.  "Let's *all* find out."  Beth
gave her a surprised look, but the cat would not meet her eye.

So it seemed there would be four of them to visit Iku.  Inwardly, Beth
fumed as they set out; she still had not quite forgiven Suzue, and it
felt as though the other girl were invading something private.  Iku was
*her* friend, not Suzue's!  But there was nothing she could do about it,
and so she went along with it in a sullen silence.

They caught a bus across town and got off in west Kimiyaza.  Dhiti was
moving a little slowly, and her torn shoulder was clearly bothering her.
It took a minute or two for her to get her bearings; as she explained,
she had come by quite a different route last time.  But after a little
while, they stood in front of a small, unexceptional house in a quiet
neighbourhood.  Dusk was falling.

Beth studied the front door, uneasy.  She had never been here before,
and when you came right down to it, she didn't actually know Iku all
that well either.  What would she say when she knocked?  'Hi, Iku-chan,
we just thought we'd stop by'?  That sounded so lame ...

Beside her, Dhiti let out an impatient snort, walked forward, and gave
a sharp rap on the door.  There was no response for a few seconds; then
they all heard the approaching footsteps.  The door opened to reveal a
middle-aged woman with greying hair and Iku's dark eyes.

"Hello?" the woman said.  Her eyes narrowed a little at the sight of
Dhiti.  "Oh, yes.  Iku's ... friend, wasn't it?"

Beth froze, but Dhiti showed no sign of being put out by the welcome.
"Hi, Kodama-san," she said blithely.  "Could we speak to Iku-chan,
please?  She wasn't at school today and we were worried."

Iku's mother raised her eyebrows.  "No, she isn't here.  Not at school,
you say?  My goodness.  She left as usual, this morning; I'd thought she
was with you, my dear, you and her other friends."  Her lips curled, for
a moment, in something that might have been a smile.  Then her face was
clear and friendly again.  "Such a *lot* of friends Iku is making, too,"
she went on.  "Isn't that nice!  She's had so many problems, you know,
with her health.  A chronic illness, poor girl; I've discussed it with
her school several times ..."

Dhiti tried to get a word in edgewise.  "Uh --"

"And it's getting so late!" the woman went on, glancing at her watch.
"Oh dear, oh dear.  What can have happened?  Perhaps I ought to call the
police ..."

"Um --" Dhiti tried again.

"I'm sure that's not necessary," broke in Suzue firmly.  "It's the last
day of term, after all.  Maybe she just decided to skip school today.  A
lot of students do."

"Oh, yes, that could be it -- it would be just like Iku, that naughty
girl --"

Suzue gave her a bright smile.  "Well, we'll catch her another time.
Sorry to have bothered you, Kodama-san.  Good evening."

They exchanged pleasantries and left the house.  Beth had a strange
feeling as she walked back down the path to the gate: as if she could
feel a pair of eyes, boring into her back.  But when she looked around
there was nothing; just a perfectly innocent-looking house and a closed
front door.

They walked down the road for a minute; and then Suzue said, in a slow,
thoughtful voice, "I don't like that woman."

Dhiti gave her a surprised look.  "Why?  I thought she was quite nice.
A bit giddy, maybe."

"I've met people like that before."  Suzue paused, and then went on
reluctantly, "You ... learn to recognise them, after a while.  The ones
who smile and act friendly and pretend to like you; but inside ..."

She trailed off.  Dhiti waited, but the girl was clearly done.  "Um,
you don't think you might be overreacting, just a little?"

"She lied about Iku-chan," said Beth.

Suzue gave her a sharp look.  "Oh?"

"She said it was just like Iku-chan to skip school.  She said she was a
naughty girl.  But Iku-chan wouldn't do a thing like that; she's never,
well, naughty.  She's too ..."

"Yes?"

Beth bit her lip.  "Too scared."

Suzue took this in and said, "She might have done it before, you know.
Some of the times you thought she was sick."

"I ... I don't believe that."

"Mm.  I don't think I do, either.  It's hard to believe Iku-san would
have the initiative to do anything on her own."  Suzue scowled.  "And I
*don't* like that woman."

"But --"  Beth spread her hands.  "What do we do, then?  If she isn't at
home, and she isn't answering her communicator --"

"I know where she might be," said a small voice.  Beth looked down,
startled, at Bendis.  The cat looked nervous, almost guilty.  "That is,
I have an idea ..."

                                  --**--

They reached the botanical gardens about twenty minutes later.  The
grounds were in shadow, but there was still enough light to thread their
way between rockeries and flower beds, following the cat.  Dhiti looked
around with interest as they went.  She had never come here before, and
she found it fascinating to compare these grounds with the wild,
overgrown bush she had seen on their trip outside the city with Itsuko.
It was an intriguing glimpse into Iku's character, too.  What was it
that brought her here so often?

At length, deep in the centre of the gardens, they came to a narrow,
winding path, bordered by trees and orchids, that looked as though it
led to a dead end.  Bendis followed it unerringly, and at the very end
she turned into a side path hidden between walls of greenery.  A short
way down, the path opened out into a little clearing that held a wooden
bench.  A girl sat there, her head lowered, hands busy with a pair of
knitting needles.

"She comes here all the time, when she isn't in school," said Bendis in
a voice that was barely more than a whisper.  She added, after a
moment's hesitation, "At least, that's what I heard."

As they approached, Iku looked up with a startled gasp.  The knitting
fell from her hands and landed in a tangled heap on the ground.  Dhiti
saw that her face was pale and blotchy.  Was she sick?

"Iku-chan?" she called softly.

Iku remained frozen, scarcely seeming to breathe.  Then, at last, she
relaxed.  "D--Dhiti-san?" she said.  Her eyes were in shadow, her voice
almost inaudible.  "What are you doing here?"

"Me?" exclaimed Dhiti.  "What about you?!  We had trouble this afternoon
and nobody could get hold of you; and when we talked to your mother she
said she didn't even know where you were!"

There was no answer for a long time.  Then, "You talked to my mother?"

"Well, duh!  She said she thought you were out with us.  But Beth-chan
said you weren't even at school today, and when you didn't answer your
communicator --"

"Oh."  Iku touched her bare wrist.  "I ... I must have left it at home
today."

Dhiti hesitated, eyeing her.  "You are all right, aren't you?  Your
mother said you were sick quite often."

"No!  I'm -- I'm perfectly fine.  I -- really, I am ..."

"Iku-san," said Suzue, cutting her off.  "Are you going to sit here all
night?"

Dhiti looked sharply around at her, about to protest, and then subsided.
There was something in the girl's face that gave her pause.  Suzue
seemed perfectly calm and matter-of-fact, but there was a look in her
eyes, a quiet intensity, that made Dhiti wonder.

Iku seemed to feel it, too.  She squirmed under that gaze, twisting in
her seat.  Her mouth opened and closed, twice.  At last, in a voice that
was barely audible, she said, "No.  I know.  I have to go home."

"All right, then," said Suzue.  She was frowning now, just a little, as
if something were bothering her.  As if, it occurred to Dhiti, she had
gotten a test question wrong, when she had been sure of her answer.

She was still pondering this when Iku stood up, picking her knitting up
and stowing it neatly away in a battered satchel.  Her face was set,
almost harsh in the twilight.  She gave Dhiti one quick, impenetrable
look.  Then, her eyes cast down at the ground in front of her, she said,
"I'm ready."

They walked out through the gardens in an uneasy group.  Iku kept
lagging behind a little, but whenever Dhiti fell back to walk beside
her, Iku would either speed up or slow down still further.  The result
was that, even surrounded by her friends, she always walked alone.  She
kept her head down, and did not speak.  Before long, all of them were
silent.

By the time they reached the edge of the gardens, the streetlights were
coming on, glowing their familiar pale blue.  Iku paused at the gate,
looking up the street, her expression flat and blank.  Then, before any
of the others could say a word, she moved on.

Suddenly, breaking the silence, Bendis said, "Maybe I should stay here.
Um, you know, not come any further."

The group came to a stop.  Suzue gave the cat a curious look.  "Why?
What's wrong?  You were okay before."

"No, I wasn't.  I hid outside the gate.  You just didn't notice."

"Well, what's the problem, then?" demanded Beth.

"I --"  Bendis hesitated, then said, rather guiltily, "I just don't want
to ... you know, deal with it.  The dog."

"Dog?"  They all spoke, almost together -- even, Dhiti noticed, Iku.

"I just ... don't like them, okay?  You have a dog, right, Iku-san?  You
mentioned one before -- I think it's the first thing I ever heard you
say.  And Beth-chan mentioned it, too."

Iku stared at the cat.  "Oh."  She said it softly, with a queer catch in
her voice, almost like a hiccough.  "Oh.  Oh, no ..."

"Huh?"  Beth looked at her, eyebrows high.  "Come to think of it,
Nanako-chan mentioned a dog, too.  A puppy, or something."

Dhiti started to mention her dream, and then paused.  For once, she
decided that now was not the best time to complicate things.  Not when
Iku was talking again at last.

"No," Iku said again.  "I don't ... I mean, not any more.  I had ... I
had a puppy once.  Koinu-chan ..."

['Puppy-chan'?] thought Dhiti in mild disgust.  [How old was she,
anyway?]  She saw Suzue open her mouth and realised that the other girl
was about to ask the same thing.  She caught Suzue's eye and shook her
head.  For a wonder, Suzue subsided.

"Koinu-chan," whispered Iku once more.  Her hands were shaking, her face
hidden in shadow.  "I used to ... I used to hold him, and he licked my
face.  He loved me.  He truly did."

"Iku-chan --" began Beth.

"How old were you?" asked Suzue, her voice strangely gentle.

"Oh ... nine, I think.  He, he was a stray, you know.  I found him in
the park.  He was s-starving.  I looked after him and I beg-- I, I asked
Mother if I could keep him, and she said yes, if I kept him quiet and he
wasn't a n-nuisance.  And I tried.  I tried so hard ..."

She was crying, Dhiti realised suddenly.  Her shoulders shook and her
face was wet with tears; but she kept on walking without pause.  They
were nearly at her house now.

"What happened?" she asked cautiously.  "Did he get sick?"

"N-no.  It was my fault.  I couldn't ... I couldn't do it."  Her breath
caught for an instant.  "It was my f-failure.  I know that.  But he was
just a puppy, you see?  He loved to play.  And I tried, and I tried, but
I c-couldn't make him understand that he had to be quiet ..."

"So -- what, your mother sent him to the pound, or something?" asked
Beth.  She sounded uneasy.

"Oh, no, not the ... pound.  One night, when he started barking, she --
she made him be quiet.  Then she told me, and I had to ... to bury him,
and she punished me afterward.  But --"

"You had to *what*?" blurted out Dhiti.

"But Mother was right," Iku whispered.  "It was my fault.  I knew that.
I couldn't do what I promised, and I had to --"

She broke off, looking around.  They had reached her house.  It was
mostly darkened, but one light, next to the front door, was on.

"I had to take the consequences."

She looked back at them, just for a moment.  Her face was miserable, but
resolute.  Then, before any of them could speak, she opened the gate and
headed up the path.  She moved quickly, almost eagerly.  As she reached
the front door it opened, and they could see a figure standing inside.
Iku went in, and the door closed behind her with a faint click.

                                  --**--

"What the *hell*?" demanded Dhiti.  "She wasn't serious, was she?  She
was nine years old and she couldn't keep a puppy quiet, so her mother
*killed* it?  And made her *bury* it herself?"

"She must be joking," said Beth in a faint voice.  "She must be.
Mustn't she?"

"I wonder," said Suzue.

"Oh, come on!  No one would *do* that --"

Bendis stopped listening.  She glanced around, checking that nobody was
watching, and slipped in through the bars of the gate.  Nanako's words
of the day before still echoed in her mind.  The girl had said that
humans didn't eat their young; but from what Bendis had just heard, and
allowing for a little metaphor, Nanako had it dead wrong.

Bendis followed the wall of the house around to the back.  She moved
cautiously and silently; she had an idea that being caught now would be
a very bad thing.  The back yard seemed empty but she paused for a
minute or two, watching out for any stray humans -- or, worse, any stray
cats or dogs.  But there was no sign of movement and she went on.

The back door of the house was closed.  She stared up at the handle,
pondering the ironies of evolution and the infuriating idiocy that had
left cats without opposable thumbs.  There was no help for it, though,
and with a sigh she moved on.

She checked the windows next.  One was half-open and she thought she
could get in, but the light was on and there might be someone inside.
She hesitated for a long time and was about to try it anyway, when a
faint sound caught her ear.  A short, sharp noise, like an impact.  She
looked around and saw, for the first time, a dim glow coming from the
ground not far away.  The angles of the house had hidden it before, but
from beneath the window it was clear.  She padded over and saw that it
came from a glass pane set low in the rear wall.  A cellar window, she
realised.  She went close and looked inside.

The cellar was deep, and lined with concrete.  Iku was in there, with a
woman who must have been her mother.  Iku was kneeling on the floor.
She was naked.  Her arms were wrapped around her stomach, as if in pain.
The other woman stood over her, one hand raised.  She was shouting, or
at least talking vehemently, but the sound was too muffled; Bendis could
not make out what she was saying.

Then -- Bendis saw it vividly, as if in slow motion -- the woman's hand
came around, catching Iku on the face and sending her sprawling across
the floor.  She followed fast with her foot, kicking the girl squarely
in the belly.  Iku's mouth opened and closed, but she made no sound.
Then, slowly, she dragged herself back up and knelt once more at the
woman's feet.  Waiting for more.

Eat their young, indeed.  Bendis could not watch any more.  She turned
and ran back around the house, back to find the other girls.

                                  --**--

Iku's face and belly were a blaze of pain.  Her head swam from the force
of the last blow; she felt giddy, and it was hard to stay upright.  She
knelt before Mother, waiting for whatever came next.  It had been a long
time since Mother had been this angry.

"-- Insufferable, disobedient, malicious little cow!" Mother raged.
"How dare you?  Not just staying out late, but consorting with those
other smug little bitches when you were forbidden to!  How *dare* you?!
Do you *want* to be punished?  Do you?"

Iku did not answer; she had not been given permission to speak.  Mother
reached out and grabbed her braid, yanking down hard and jerking Iku's
head back.  She gasped at the sudden pain, and Mother pulled again,
harder.

"Well, *do* you?" Mother snarled.

"No, Mother," whispered Iku.  She could barely see; her eyes were filled
with tears of pain from her pulled hair.

The grasp on her hair vanished.  In its place, a hand planted itself on
her forehead and pushed back with frightening strength.  Iku could not
keep her balance; she fell backward, wrenching her still-tender ankle
once more.  The back of her head hit the concrete wall with a crack.

That was too much.  She pitched forward and threw up on the floor.  Her
stomach was nearly empty; only a thin, foamy liquid came out, but the
cramps in her belly seemed to last forever.

Finally it ended and she braced herself on hands and knees, shaking and
gasping for air.  A foot came down on her back, forcing her down
face-first in the mess.

"You are the most appalling, repulsive piece of trash imaginable," said
Mother's voice with eerie calm.  "You are a waste of time, a waste of
effort, and a waste of space.  It is truly a mystery to me why you don't
just throw yourself under a bus.  The world would be better off without
you."

"No," gasped Iku.  "No."

"Yes.  You are a trial sent upon me.  You are a blight.  Well, I have
had enough, my girl.  If you will not see the error of your ways, then
it falls to me to show them to you; and if I have to thrash you until
you are half-dead then that is what I am going to --"

 From upstairs, there came a crash.

Mother looked around, startled.  A moment later, they both heard a cry
of pain or surprise, suddenly cut off.  Masahiko's voice.  Mother gave a
snarl of fury.  She took two steps toward the stairs.  Then she paused
and returned, staring down at Iku.

"Stay here," she grated.  "Don't move.  Understand, my girl?"

Feebly, Iku nodded.  She had made it up to hands and knees again, but
now she froze.  Her stomach roiled, and the taste in her mouth was
vile.  Her head hurt.  Everything hurt.

Mother turned and started toward the stairs once more.  She never made
it.  She stopped with a gasp as, with a clatter of heels, three figures
descended from the floor above.  In the dim yellow light from the single
bulb on the ceiling, the white of their uniforms almost seemed to glow.

Iku knew them well, of course.  Mercury, Venus, Uranus.  But that they
should come here, and see her like this -- internally, she could feel
herself shrivel with horror and shame.  She wanted to cry, to cover
herself, but still she did not dare.  What were they doing *here*, where
nobody else should ever come?

(And at the back of her mind, very distantly, an inner voice said:
[Dhiti-san?]  And then: [You came for me.  You came after all.]  And
something inside her changed forever.)

"Who -- what --" Mother stammered.  "What do you think you're doing
here, you dirty girls?!  Who are you?  Get out!  Get out of my house!"

The Senshi did not respond; they simply came on.  Spluttering in rage
and, at last, a hint of partially-concealed fear, Mother strode forward.
"Get out!" she shouted again.  "I don't know who you are but I'm calling
the police right now --"

"Be quiet," said Sailor Uranus.  Her voice was glacial.  Then, paying
Mother no further attention, she walked straight past the woman.  She
knelt at Iku's side, staying out of the pool of vomit but otherwise
hardly seeming to notice it.  "Don't try to get up yet," she said in a
low voice.  "Wait until you feel steady again."

Iku dared to raise her head a little.  "I ... I know," she said.

Uranus cocked her head to one side, eyebrows raised.  "Yes," she said
after a moment.  "Yes, I suppose you do."

"Please," said Iku, "you can't come here.  She'll get angry -- she'll be
so angry ..."  She hardly dared to think about how angry Mother might
get.  There were no words for how bad it would be.

Uranus did not stir.  "I wouldn't worry about that," she said.  "I think
Sailor Mercury has it pretty well in hand."

"What --?"

Iku looked up once more and saw in horror that Sailor Mercury was
holding Mother by the arms and shaking her.  Mother was yelling at her
and trying to break free, but to no avail.  Mercury showed no reaction;
her face seemed almost expressionless, but Iku knew her well enough by
now to see the simmering anger beneath the surface.

"No," Iku moaned.  "No, this is wrong ..."  She tried to get up again,
and made it to her knees.  Her head was spinning.  Her belly, her ankle,
her whole body ached.  She felt as if she were about to throw up again.

"Easy," said Uranus, but she moved back a little to give Iku room.  She
had an odd, almost analytical look: as if she were waiting curiously to
see what Iku would do next.

A stifled gasp made Iku pause.  She craned her head around and saw
Masahiko halfway down the stairs.  For a moment her vision swam and she
saw two of him.  Then there was only one, racing down the stairs and
flinging himself toward Mother.

Sailor Venus caught him neatly, snatching him aside and holding him
fast.  He struggled to escape, squirming and twisting, but Venus' arm
around his chest never budged.

"Mama!" he yelled.  "Mama, help me!"  Venus cupped her other hand over
his mouth.  His eyes flickered around the room, came to rest on Iku,
moved on to Mother, and returned to his sister.  He subsided then, his
chest rising and falling quickly.

"You monsters!" Mother snarled, still held firmly in Mercury's grasp.
"You vicious monsters.  Who do you think you are?  How dare you?!  You
think you can break into my house -- come in here and molest my darling
baby boy, and attack an innocent woman in her own home?  How *dare*
you?!  Look at you there, prancing around in your fancy costumes, all
lily-white -- but I can see your souls and they are blacker than the
pit!  I tell you, I'll make sure the whole world heard about this!  And
I promise you, I will never rest until you pay for your sins, my girls,
until they hunt you down and string you up and make you *pay and pay and
pay --*"

"That's enough," said Mercury in her ear, and Mother froze.  "That's
more then enough.  If you say one word more, I swear I'm going to break
your nose, just to shut you up."

Mother gaped at her for a moment.  Then her face contorted and she said,
"You vicious, contemptible, lying guttersnipe bitch ..."

Sailor Mercury's eyes flashed, and her mouth set in a queer smile.
"Thank you," she said.  She released one hand from Mother's arm, raised
her clenched fist, and --

"No," said Iku.  Her voice was a hoarse rasp, but it carried throughout
the cellar.  "No, please.  Sailor Mercury, please don't."

Mercury looked down at her, incredulous.  "You're *protecting* her?
After everything she's done to you ... why?"

"Because --"  Iku fumbled to a stop: unable, in the face of a lifetime
of woes, to say or even really understand what she meant.  At last, in a
very low voice, she said, "Because she's my mommy ..."

Mercury stared at her for a moment longer.  Then something in her face
seemed to crumple.  "All right," she said.  She looked at Mother one
more time, and her mouth twisted in contempt.  "Get out of the way,
you," she said, and gave the woman a sharp push.  Mother lurched and
tottered across the cellar, wailing, thumped heavily into the far wall,
and slid to the floor, her skirt up around her hips.

Ignoring her, Mercury walked over to Iku's side, knelt down, and picked
her up with no visible effort.  Mercury's shoulder was hurt, Iku noticed
through a daze, but it did not seem to hinder her.   "At least," she
said, "we're getting you out of this hell-hole.  Understand?"

"I --" began Iku.  Then she stopped.  Something was happening inside
her; somewhere, far below, something was being born.  A thing that she
barely recognised, but unmistakable all the same.  For the first time in
so long: hope.

"Yes, Sailor Mercury," she said obediently.  She laid her head back on
Mercury's arm, and let the girl carry her upstairs.  It felt good.

                                  --**--

They left Iku's mother and brother in the cellar.  Uranus stood guard
while the others paused briefly in Iku's room to gather some clothes and
other belongings.  There was disturbingly little to gather.

Mercury did most of the packing.  She worked with a brisk efficiency,
almost as if she had done it before.  Venus, for her part, tried rather
ineffectually to help Iku clean up and get dressed.  It was difficult,
because every time she looked at the girl she such felt a mixture of
different emotions.  Concern, certainly; but at the back of it was a
shrinking, crawling sensation, making her reluctant to touch or go near
or even look at Iku.  The instinctive shying away from someone who had
been damaged.

Beyond even that, though, was the shame.  How could she have known Iku
for so long and not have realised?  Never even have suspected?  Was she
so blind?

And even: if she could have been blind to this, what else had she never
noticed?  What else was she simply looking past, every day, without it
ever registering?  It was a disturbing thought.

"That's enough," said Mercury.  She picked up the large, battered pack
that held Iku's gear, hefting it experimentally, and slung it across her
back.  "Let's go, everyone.  Iku-chan, can you walk?"

"I ... I think so," said Iku.  "Um ..."

"Yes?"

"Where ... I mean ... where ..."

"Where is she going?" put in Uranus quietly from behind her.  "To the
police, I suppose, or 'E' Division."  She frowned suddenly.

"The hell with that," said Mercury in a flat tone.  "She's coming with
me.  We have a spare bedroom at home.  She can have that."

"Uh," said Venus.  "What will your parents say?"

"Let me worry about that."  The grim, determined look on Mercury's face
suggested that if her parents objected, she was not going to take 'no'
for an answer.

Uranus shrugged, and a faint smile crossed her face.  "All right, then.
Let's go."

They went outside.  The front door still hung open where Mercury had
broken the lock earlier; she pulled it shut behind her.  Iku was having
trouble walking again and after a moment Mercury scooped the girl up in
her arms once more.  They began to run through the streets.

"What if her mother makes trouble?" asked Venus after a moment.

Mercury snorted.  "As if.  She says a word, and it'll all come out about
what she's done to Iku-chan.  She'd be thrown in prison faster than she
can blink.  If she's smart she'll keep her mouth shut."

"If she's smart," repeated Uranus thoughtfully.

Mercury tightened her lips.  "Dammit, I don't like just leaving her
either.  There ought to be some kind of justice!  But --"

"You think you could have given her justice?" asked Uranus.

"Huh?  Damn right I could!  A lot better than just leaving that woman
there without a scratch --"

"No," whispered Iku.

"No," repeated Uranus, nodding.  "You couldn't have given her justice,
Dhiti-san.  All you could have given her was revenge; and Iku-san didn't
want that, remember?"  She glanced over at Iku and added, in a low,
measuring tone, "Nicely done, by the way."

Iku blinked at her.  Mercury spluttered and said, "I -- what?  You think
I --"  She broke off.  A minute later, grudgingly, she said, "Maybe
you're right."

"Hm.  Maybe."  Uranus glanced around and said, "Do you guys mind if I
head off now?  There's something I want to take care of before I get
home."

"Off to see your boyfriend?" inquired Mercury, and grinned at Uranus'
expression.  "Sure, whatever.  We'll be okay."

Uranus nodded, then turned down a side street and sped off.  Mercury
watched her go and murmured, "Damned if I can figure her out sometimes."

"Yeah," said Venus, heartfelt.

Mercury glanced at her and said, "You want to take off too?  Iku-chan
and I will be fine; it's only another block or two home."

"Um.  Okay, thanks.  Uh, see you, Iku-chan ..."

Venus paused, watching the two speed off.  Bendis, who had been riding
her shoulder, said, "What's the matter?"

"Oh ... nothing.  I mean, it's all okay now, right?  She'll be fine.  We
fixed the problem and everything's all right.  Right?"

Bendis did not answer at once.  At last she repeated, "So what's the
matter?"

"I don't know.  Nothing, I suppose.  It's just ..."  Venus groped for
the words.  "It's all too complicated.  I don't know what to think any
more.  Iku-chan.  And ... and Suzue-san too, I guess.  I thought she was
going to be horrible when we found out about Iku-chan, but instead she
was ... she was ..."

"Complicated?" suggested Bendis.  "You know, you don't usually talk this
way when you're Sailor Venus."

"Uh --"  Venus *definitely* did not want to talk about that.  "I guess
so.  I ... oh, I don't know!  I'm tired and I'm sore and my head is
pounding and I just ... don't want to think about anything complicated
for a while."

"Go home and get some rest," said Bendis.  "Or watch the viddy."

"Rest.  Yeah."  Venus took the advice gratefully.  She jogged home,
climbed in through her bedroom window, and de-transformed.  Instantly
the weariness rose to cover her like a blanket.  She lay back on her bed
and closed her eyes.  As her head sunk into her pillow she heard Bendis
pad to the door and go out.  Off to watch the viddy, probably.  Beth
smiled to herself and tried to relax.

After a few minutes, though, she opened her eyes once more.  She was
still tired, but the thoughts whirling through her mind would not let
her sleep.  Iku.  Suzue.  And Sailor Venus, who had gone missing and
left Beth in charge.  What was she to make of it all?

She sat up, gave a sour look to the pile of books on her bedside table,
and gave serious thought to going out and joining Bendis.  Then another
idea occurred to her.  She fumbled through a pile of paper on her desk
and found the one she was looking for.  A comm number that she'd been
given, nearly a week ago.  She hesitated one moment more, then punched
the code into her commset.

A voice answered, moments later.  Beth said, "Hello, Mark-san?  It's
Beth; we met while we were out running.  Listen, are you doing anything
this evening ...?"

                                  --**--

Sailor Uranus did not go to see her boyfriend.  Instead she took a loop
back through the streets.  Two or three minutes later, she stood outside
Iku's house once more.

She stood at the gate for some time, pondering what she was about to do.
Then she went up to the front door and pushed it open.

In the hallway, she heard the voices coming from the living room: Iku's
mother, delivering a ceaseless harangue against her daughter and her new
friends, and Iku's little brother, answering occasionally in
monosyllables.

Again she paused.  The boy couldn't have been more than fourteen.  Then
she thought again of the looks he had been giving Iku, down in the
cellar: hungry, gloating.  What must it do to a boy, growing up in a
family like this?  He would learn to be dominated ... or to dominate.

She stepped into the living room, and the voices fell silent in an
instant.  Iku's mother sat in an ample armchair, the younger boy clasped
to her breast.  He lay there complacently, but the look on his face was
one of boredom.  His mother's face was curled into an aspect of baffled
rage, but it turned to naked fury as she saw Uranus.

"You!" she shouted.  "What do you want now?  Come to brutalise an
innocent woman further?  Or to steal another child?"

"I was thinking," said Uranus, "about the nature of justice."

That shut the woman up for a moment, at least.  But she resumed an
instant later with a torrent of invective.  "Get out of my house, you
dirty, skanky little tart.  Isn't it bad enough that you've stolen my
daughter for your sick little games?  I've called the police already and
they'll be here in another two minutes, so you'll get what's coming to
you at least --"

"I was thinking about justice," Uranus repeated.  She did not raise her
voice, but Iku's mother fell silent instantly.  "I was wondering if I'm
capable of it."

"Wh-what are you talking about, you --"

"Is there even such a thing as justice?  Or is revenge all there can
ever be?"  Uranus came further into the room and knelt down, directly in
front of Iku's mother's armchair.  "I mean, if you want to punish a
person who's hurt someone else, isn't that just because you yourself
feel hurt by the crime?  Even if it's just a feeling of outrage against
what's happened to the victim?"

"You ..."  Mother stared at her.  "You're crazy."

"Sometimes I think," Uranus said, "that only someone who truly loves the
guilty person and the victim both can give them real justice.  Because
they're the only one who can weigh the balance properly."  Her eyes
flicked around the room and she shook her head.  "Well, it doesn't
matter.  I might not be capable of justice.  But I can strike a kind of
balance."  As she stood up, her gaze returned to the two in the armchair
and she said, "You need to get out of this house, right now."

Paying them no further attention, she went into the little kitchen
attached to the living room.  A quick adjustment turned on all the
burners on the gas stove.  Then she stepped back and said under her
breath, "Music of the Spheres."

The explosion rocked the kitchen.  Uranus watched for a few seconds
until she was satisfied that the walls and ceiling were catching alight
as well.  Then she returned to the living room.

Iku's mother and brother were staring at her, horror on their faces.
Uranus nodded at them, gave them a tiny half-smile, and said, "Be glad
that it was me who came ... and not Sailor Jupiter."

They broke and turned to run.  Uranus followed them out the front door
at a leisurely pace.  She could feel the heat on her back, growing
rapidly.  It was the middle of summer, of course; the house must have
been tinder-dry.

The woman tried to hit her as she came out, and Uranus side-stepped
easily.  She looked at the two, standing forlorn in their front yard,
and said, "By the way.  If I hear that either of you talked about this
... I'll find you again.  That's all."

Doors and windows were starting to open in neighbouring properties.  It
was pretty dark, though, and Uranus was confident that she would not be
recognised.  She jumped up, touching down on the next-door house, and
began to leap away over the rooftops.  Off in the distance, she heard
the first siren begin to wail.

A kind of balance, yes.  She might not be able to give Iku justice, but
she could see to it that her place of suffering no longer troubled the
world.  And didn't it make sense that if Iku had to lose her home, then
so did the ones who abused her?  Although ... she could not escape the
feeling that Queen Serenity might not have agreed.

But would Ten'ou Haruka?  The thought made Uranus smile, just for an
instant, as she ran.

                                  --**--

Jogging lightly toward home, Sailor Mercury chuckled to herself again as
she remembered Uranus' expression.  The girl was pretty touchy about her
boyfriend; she was a lot of fun to tease on the subject.  All the same
... Mercury's smile faded.  It did rather raise the question of Dhiti's
own love life -- or lack of it.  None of the boys could keep up with
her, and it was not for lack of her trying.  Truth to tell, none of them
had ever really appealed to her at all.  She'd have given up, except
that being left alone while all the others started to pair off sucked
even worse.  Sometimes it seemed that she really was as slippery as ice.

She glanced down at the girl in her arms and grimaced.  Boyfriends could
wait; her house was just ahead.  She paused in a nice dark spot, let Iku
down, and de-transformed.  Her shoulder hurt a lot worse out of Senshi
form, but she could stand it.  At least it had stopped bleeding, and the
dark red stain that had been down her arm did not transfer over to her
school uniform jacket.

The pain in her shoulder faded in importance as the two of them walked
the last twenty metres to her house.  Iku was limping a little.  The
situation seemed familiar, and after a moment she realised that it felt
almost exactly the same as when she'd escorted Iku home after the raid
last week.  That thought made her realise what had probably happened to
Iku short afterward, and the idea made Dhiti's anger start to burn
again.

As they reached the house, she threw the front door open and led Iku in.
She led the girl down the corridor into the living room and paused at
the door.  Her father was sitting in his usual place, and her mother was
in the chair beside him, reading.  They looked up at her in surprise.

Dhiti took a deep breath, and pulled Iku forward into the room.  "This
is my friend, Kodama Iku," she said.  "She's going to be staying with
us."

Sharma Praket's eyebrows lifted a fraction, which was a strong reaction
for him.  He took a moment to respond, but when he did so his voice was
calm and mild.  "Indeed?" he said.  "Then welcome to our home, Kodama
Iku.  I trust you will find your stay pleasant."

Beside him, Dhiti's mother dropped her startled look and managed to
smile.  "Hello, Iku-san," she said.  "Welcome.  How long will you be
staying?"

Iku started to stutter, and Dhiti gave her a firm nudge to shut her up.
"Forever," she said to her parents in a flat tone.  Then, before either
of them could reply, she pointed to the stairs and said to Iku, "Go on
up.  The guest room is the second on the left.  Or, wait, I'll show
you."

She started up the stairs, pulling Iku behind her.  Iku balked for a
moment, gave Praket and Salila a deep, frightened bow, and then fled up
the stairs after Dhiti.

Artemis was not about, thankfully; no doubt he was off chatting with
Seki and Makoto.  Well, hooray for them.  In the meantime, glad that she
did not have to deal with him, Dhiti showed Iku into the guest room.  It
was half-filled with a clutter of old family belongings, but the bed and
one dresser were clear.  She dropped Iku's bag on the bed and said, "You
go ahead and get unpacked.  I'll talk to them."

"You -- they -- they won't like it," whispered Iku.  "They'll be angry."

Dhiti gave her a twisted half-smile.  "Well, yeah, maybe.  But they'll
be angry at me, Iku-chan, not you.  Don't worry about it."

"But --"

"Don't worry, I said.  I'll be back in a couple of minutes."

Dhiti went back downstairs and found her parents waiting.  Her father
said only, "Explain, please."

She told them an abbreviated version of the truth.  Iku was a friend
from school, and  Dhiti had just found out what the girl's family were
doing to her.  She told them, without hiding any details, what she had
seen when she went into the cellar.

"You confronted the girl's family yourself?" asked Praket.

"I had a couple of other friends with me.  We managed to keep them busy
while Iku-chan got away."

"I see."  Praket's gaze grew distant.  "Your instincts are praiseworthy,
daughter.  But I cannot help thinking that the police, and the 'O'
Division child welfare office, might handle the situation better."

"Nonsense," said Salila, making him break off and give her a look of
mild surprise.  "That would just drive the girl through the legal
system, put her through a great deal of public scrutiny, and make things
even worse for her.  Think about it, dear."

Praket considered this.  "Perhaps," he said.  "But is this the best
place for her?  What do you intend, daughter?  Is she to be some kind of
foster sister to you?"

"I don't know," said Dhiti honestly.  "But I think ... maybe ... she can
learn to be happy here."

Her father studied her with a long, uncomfortable gaze.  Then he gave
her a short nod.  "Very well.  See to your guest, then, daughter."

His sudden acquiescence caught Dhiti by surprise.  She said, "Um ...
yeah.  Okay, thanks.  Uh ... how long until dinner?  I'll let her take a
bath."  She fled up the stairs almost before her mother had answered.

Behind her, Salila exchanged glances with her husband.  "You'll look
into it?" she asked.

He nodded.  "Of course."  He turned thoughtful eyes back to the stairs
and added, "There is a silver lining.  She is learning to care about
others."  With no little satisfaction, he added, "At last."

                                  --**--

Upstairs, Dhiti found Iku sitting ramrod-straight on the guest bed, her
face caught somewhere between nervousness and terror.  Dhiti stood in
the doorway and said, "It's okay.  You can stay."

Iku stared at her like a deer caught in headlights.  "What --"

"It's okay," repeated Dhiti.  "They said so.  You can stay.  Forever."

"Stay?" said Iku, wonderingly.  "Truly?  I can --?"  Then, without
warning, she burst into tears.

Dhiti froze, uncertain.  What was she supposed to do?  Leave Iku to
collect herself?  Say something comforting?  She had no idea.
Hesitantly, she stepped over to the bed and sat down beside Iku, laying
a hand on the girl's shoulder.  "Hey," she said.

She got no further than that because Iku whirled and threw her arms
around Dhiti, burying her face in her shoulder as she continued to sob.
Dhiti found herself rubbing the girl's back, rather bemused.  So what
was she supposed to do *now*?  Comfort her?  But how?

As she groped for answers, one long-ago comfort came back to her: the
old lullaby, the one her mother had sung to Dhiti when she was a little
girl.  It seemed trite ... but it was all she had to offer.  Feeling
both awkward and ridiculous, Dhiti started to sing.

         By and by, my darling,
         Sun will come again.
         There'll be golden mornings
         After days of rain.
         Certain as the dewdrops
         On my window pane,
         By and by, my darling,
         Sun will come again.

Miraculously, it seemed to work.  Iku seemed to quieten in her arms, and
Dhiti kept on singing as the sobs died away to a faint snuffling.  For
the first time it occurred to her that she was holding another girl
close.  Somehow, it was not as awkward a feeling as she would have
expected.

         Wipe away the teardrops,
         Kiss away the pain;
         By and by, my darling,
         Sun will come again.

Distantly, her father's words came back to her: [What do you intend,
daughter?]  Slowly, tentatively, she lifted a hand to stroke Iku's hair.

And then she knew.


------------------------------------------------------------------------
      S   A   I   L   O   R       M   O   O   N       4   2   0   0
------------------------------------------------------------------------
              E N D   O F   C H A P T E R   F O U R T E E N
------------------------------------------------------------------------

NEXT:  New enemies appear, along with new allies, as the Senshi work to
consolidate their roles.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Angus MacSpon                                  Email: macspon at ihug.co.nz
ICQ: 65719513                          http://shell.ihug.co.nz/~macspon/