Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction / Sailor Moon Fan Fiction / Crossover Fan Fiction ❯ Reflections of Ruin ❯ A Destiny of Stars, Part II ( Chapter 8 )

The great city of Tokyo had shut down in anticipation of the coming storm, and the people had by and large moved into the all-purpose disaster shelters that the government had built after the third time monsters had attacked the city en masse. The sun shone fitfully above the approaching clouds, her last bright gleaming slowly fading as a wall of solid gray spread across the sky, and with the clouds came the rain. One moment the streets were dry, the next they were being buffeted by a torrential downpour; the great roaring rains of God. Or of a god, in any case. The wind began to howl. And in the midst of the gathering power of the storm, the Senshi acted.

 

Their plan was simple: They were reasonably certain that Professor Tomoe was not at home, so his house would be empty except for any defenses he may have in place. They would enter the Tomoe home through an upstairs window accessible from the roof - one of two entrances not protected by alarm spells. Of all of them, Sailor Moon would need assistance to get up there. That would be Ranma's job. Sailor Pluto would remain at the Shrine to keep Uranus and Neptune suspended between the point of life and death. The Tomoe residence was shielded against teleportation - otherwise, Pluto could simply teleport in, take the Talismans, and then teleport out. Once inside the house, the Senshi would split into pairs and search for the Talismans and for the source of the teleportation shield. Mercury with Mars, Venus with Jupiter, Moon with Tuxedo Kamen, and Saturn by herself. Once they'd found the source of the shield and the Talismans, they would destroy the shield, seize the Talismans, and they'd all teleport back to the shrine.

 

It sounded simple enough, but as she ran through the pouring rain, her clothing plastered wetly against her skin, Ranma couldn't help but wonder if it really was a very good plan. Setsuna's input had been minimal: she'd really done little more than present her intelligence, and then let the girls come up with whatever plan they thought would be best. Some aspects of it Ranma was sure were bad ideas, but she had been voted down. When Ranma had looked to Setsuna for support, the woman had only smiled. Surely the older Senshi must have known that they could have come up with a better plan.

 

So why hadn't she said anything?

 

They were very near the Tomoe house now. Akane had not been pleased with the thought of having to remain at the Shrine with Setsuna and Chibi-Usa, and had reacted... badly. Still, they'd convinced her to remain behind in the end. Ranma hoped.

 

Here they were. It was raining almost too hard to see clearly now, and the wind was picking up to dangerous levels. It was going to be a pain to get out of here. Ranma glanced at the others, waited for Sailor Moon's nod, and then seized Sailor Moon around the waist and leaped over the surrounding fence and landed lightly on the roof. The others quickly followed.

 

Strange.

 

The rain was less severe, here, and the wind was barely more than a breeze. Once you got past the fence around the Tomoe residence... there was some kind of barrier around the house, keeping the worst of the wind and the rain from touching the place. Outside, a Typhoon was coming on hard. Here, it was little more than a steady drizzle. Now that she was looking for it, Ranma could actually *see* the excess rain flowing down the sides of the barrier, but it was a hazy thing - like her eyes didn't want to focus on it. It was very easy to just let her vision slip past the barrier and its visible effects.

 

She shook her head to clear her thoughts and glanced at the other Senshi, plus Tuxedo Kamen.

 

It was time to get to work.

 

Not far away, unbeknownst to Ranma and the Senshi, Akane Tendo trudged fiercely through the storm. Stay behind at the Shrine? Stay behind, when the others were going to the *Tomoe* residence, just because she wasn't a Senshi?

 

Like hell.

 

That old tugging feeling was there again, and combined with her injured pride, pulled the Tendo girl onwards. Though the wind howled and the rain seemed enough to wash the whole city away, Akane Tendo would not be denied.

 

Not this time.

 

----------------

 

Reflections of Ruin

by P.H. Wise

A Ranma/Sailor Moon/Cthulhu Mythos Crossover Fukufic

 

Chapter 8 - A Destiny of Stars, Part II

 

Disclaimer: I don't own Ranma. I don't own Sailor Moon. Please don't sue me. I'm not doing this for profit. Some descriptive text is paraphrased from the short story, `From Beyond,' by H.P. Lovecraft. I didn't write that.

 

Warning: This chapter may be a bit disturbing. We're dealing with Horrors Which Man Was Not Meant To Know, here, and punches are not pulled.

 

----------------

 

One by one, they slid through the window into the bedroom. It was warm, and the light was soft and purple. Makoto, Minako, Ami, Ranma, Usagi, and finally Mamoru. As they came out of the rain, the magic inherent to their transformations went to work at drying them off, and within a few seconds, the room was slightly more damp, and the group had become dry.

 

The room was half empty, but the half that wasn't bare was some kind of shrine - the kind a bereaved parent might build to their lost child. The closet stood open, and a dozen sets of baby clothes were neatly folded on the wooden shelves therein, most of them purples and pinks. A crib stood in the corner, covered in dust and old, never used blankets. On the wall above the crib was a painting, or at least the frame of one, but what was displayed thereupon was anything but ordinary: clearly magical, it showed the living image of a lovely young woman with dark hair and purple eyes. She was wearing the uniform of a student at Mugen Gakuen, and she greeted these intruders into her domain with a kind of sad curiosity.

 

Ranma stared. So did everyone else, for that matter. But for Ranma, it was more than just amazement at the strange painting. She found the image of that girl to be... compelling. Looking at it filled her with the strangest sense of half-remembered heartache. She might have stood there staring at the girl's image for hours had Usagi not broken the spell by speaking aloud.

 

“Who are you?” Usagi asked with wonder.

 

The girl in the painting met Usagi's gaze and smiled faintly. “I'm the image of the master's daughter,” she replied. “Her name was Hotaru: I am what she would have looked like now if she had lived.”

 

Usagi gasped aloud, and the others exchanged guarded looks. “A girl died here?” she asked sadly.

 

Hotaru's image nodded. “It was a great inconvenience to master Germatoid.”

 

“Why?” Tuxedo Kamen asked sharply.

 

Hotaru turned her gaze to Tuxedo Kamen. “Hotaru was Sailor Saturn, of course. What better host could there be for the true Messiah of Silence than the Senshi of Ruin?”

 

All eyes went to Ranma, and the words of the girl in the painting struck her like a physical blow. She shuddered, and staggered backwards. “Why should we believe you?” she managed after a moment, her mind racing.

 

The image, which had only looked at them before, now suddenly seemed to *perceive* them. “You!” she hissed, staring directly at Ranma. The painting began to glow intensely. “Master Germatoid said this day would come; it's what I was created for, but I never expected...” Hotaru laughed out loud. “Come closer, Saturn. I want to see what kind of girl you were reborn as.”

 

“Saturn,” Rei warned, producing an ofuda, “I don't like this. Back away from the painting.” She raised the ofuda as if to strike the painting with it.

 

But Ranma wasn't listening. As if in a trance, she moved forward, and after a moment, she was glowing with the same light as the painting. She reached out to touch its surface.

 

“Saturn, no!” Usagi cried, and reached out to stop her friend from touching the image on the wall, knowing it was too late.

 

The image of Hotaru reached out of the painting and grasped Ranma by the hand. The glow intensified, and soon, Ranma was disappearing into the frame, her eyes blank. Even as she sank into the image, she blinked suddenly. Her eyes widened. “Oh, shit...!” she managed, and then...

 

CRACK! Tuxedo Kamen's rose struck the painting violently, embedding itself stem first in the canvas. Cracks of white light spread out from the point of impact, and the whole image shattered with a small concussive wave and a terrific flare of white light. Ranma was knocked to the floor.

 

“Tuxedo Kamen-Sama!” Usagi said admiringly. A moment later, she realized what had happened to Ranma, and dashed to the red-head's side. “Saturn-chan!” she exclaimed. “Can you move? Are you ok?”

 

A Daimon egg slid out of the empty frame of the painting, fell to the floor with a small, hollow thunk, and promptly split in half. For a moment, a tiny dark spirit was visible floating above it, but it quickly disintegrated.

 

Ranma sat up and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Aw, man that stings,” she said, shaking her head to clear her thoughts. “I'm ok. What the heck was that?”

 

Rei offered Ranma a hand, and Ranma took it without even thinking about it, quickly rising to her feet. She staggered once, leaned heavily against the Senshi of Mars for a moment, and then appeared to recover.

 

“The spirit in the painting was a Daimon,” Rei said. “Tuxedo Kamen probably saved your life, Saturn.”

 

Ranma turned to face the masked man, and for a moment, neither of their expressions betrayed anything. Then Ranma nodded her thanks, and Mamoru acknowledged it with a returning nod.

 

Rei grew irritated. “Aren't you going to thank him for saving you?” she asked.

 

“She did,” Mamoru said, and turned his attention back to Usagi.

 

Flustered, Rei looked at Mamoru, then at Ranma, clearly having missed something there.

 

Mercury's computer beeped suddenly, and she looked up with a smile. “I've found the talismans,” she said. “According to these readings, they're in the basement, two floors below us.”

 

Minako grinned brightly. “Right!” she said. “We'll have the talismans and be home in time for breakfast!” The others didn't bother to correct her, but that may have been because they didn't have time. Even as she spoke, Minako strode boldly over to the door, turned the handle, and swung it open wide.

 

At first glance, it was only a hallway outside the room. Just an ordinary hallway, and clearly nothing to be worried about. But appearances can often be deceiving. Minako stepped into the hallway and moved round the corner.

 

The others moved out into the hallway behind her, only to find that she was nowhere to be seen.

 

“Venus?” Usagi asked.

 

Silence.

 

“Minako-chan?” she asked again in a small voice.

 

---------------

 

The typhoon hit Tokyo full force, and as it did, the Wind Walker put forth his might. Waves of eldritch power roiled forth across the city as he acted, freezing the storm even as he sustained it by his power. Rain turned to snow, and the hurricane force winds blasted against Tokyo with all the icy fury of the coldest reaches of the frozen north. The bay froze solid as he emerged from it, planting his icy footsteps upon the docks, striding forcefully through the streets and leaving devastation in his wake. Ithaqua had come to Tokyo, called well beyond his accustomed hunting grounds by an ancient rite of summoning that even he could not deny; the Esoteric Order of Dagon had done its work well.

 

Even as the God of the Cold White Silence strode ashore, at the Hikawa Shrine, Setsuna shivered in spite of the magical warmth her Senshi fuku provided her, slid the last storm-shutter into place, and sat next to Chibi-Usa. They had taken shelter in the fire-reading room, and against the cold chill of winter, the Sacred Fire blazed brightly, filling the wooden hall with an uncomfortable warmth.

 

“Puu, is all of this really going to be all right?” Chibi-Usa asked. She too had transformed into her Senshi fuku for the additional protection it provided against the cold. She'd wanted to take shelter in the main house, but Setsuna had vetoed that idea immediately.

 

Setsuna smiled fondly. “I can't say,” she replied.

 

They sat there in silence, listening to the wind howl for a few moments.

 

“You don't know, or you can't say?” Chibi-Usa asked.

 

Setsuna didn't answer.

 

Chibi-Usa waited a few moments more, then sighed heavily. Sadness rested heavily upon her youthful shoulders. “Does it really have to happen the way I remember?” she asked quietly. “The stories mama told me about the days that led up to...” she trailed off. “I feel bad for Aunt Ranma. To have her tell stories about it is one thing, but to watch her live through it... What if I went and told them all about what's coming? What if I tried to change things?”

 

“You didn't,” Setsuna replied, shaking her head, “It will happen the way it happens, Small Lady. From your point of view, all this has already happened, and it can't be changed. For Usagi and the others, it's happening now, and they're free to change how it ends with their actions.”

 

“And from your point of view?”

 

Once again, Setsuna didn't answer. Outside, the wind howled, and the storm raged.

 

-------------------

 

“Minako-chan!” Usagi cried aloud, and the others cringed at her volume.

“Sailor Moon, we're trying to sneak in here, not tell everyone in a three block radius what we're doing!” Rei scolded.

 

“But Minako-chan couldn't have just vanished!” Usagi said, now whispering.

 

Makoto nodded her agreement. “She has to be around here somewhere,” she said, striding down the passageway. The others followed in single file. Something about the architecture of this house twisted the eye. The angles seemed wrong, though none of them could have said why. The shadows were longer, full of greater menace, and there was a subtle sense of what is best described as `twisting.' They rounded a corner, and Makoto suddenly fell... forward, down the hall, as if it were a sheer drop. With a surprised yelp, she vanished into the gloom.

 

“Mako-chan!” Usagi cried out in alarm, reaching for her friend. Ranma pulled Usagi back at the last second, barely saving her from Sailor Jupiter's fate. “What happened?” Usagi asked, her long blonde ponytails swishing back and forth as she looked at those of her friends who remained. “Where is she?”

 

Ami manifested her visor and the Mercury computer and began to scan the area even as Rei, Ranma, and Mamoru looked around suspiciously. Mamoru stood protectively over Usagi, and she shrank back against his side.

 

“There's an intense spatial distortion...” Ami began.

 

Rei took a step backwards.

 

“Mars, no!” Ami yelled out in warning.

 

It was too late. Sailor Mars' eyes widened as she fell through an angle between the floor and the hallway wall that outright defied three dimensional geometry. It was painful to see her fall through it. Stomach-wrenching. The existence of such a space was simply *wrong* on a primordial level, as if she hadn't simply fallen through the floor, but *between* the floor, somehow.

 

“Mercury, what's happening?” Usagi asked desperately, clutching tightly to Mamoru's arm.

 

Ami shook her head. “This doesn't make any sense. The computer is trying to compute four dimensions of space and two of time. It's...” She looked horrified. “This whole house is a kind of tesseract. But it's more than that. According to these readings, time here has both length and width!”

 

“I don't understand,” Usagi said, growing more and more distressed.

 

Ranma looked intently from one side of the hallway to the other. “They're still here, Usagi-san. I can sense their ki. They just ain't here.”

 

Mamoru nodded thoughtfully and did his best to explain the concept to Usagi. She didn't understand it, but she at least found the sound of his voice to be comforting, so there was that. “...I've studied objects that exist in four dimensional space, but I never thought I'd actually end up inside of one...” He noticed Usagi's zoned out look and smiled gently. “We'll find them, Usako.”

 

“There,” Ami said, pointing slightly to Usagi's right. “There's the place Rei fell through.”

 

“But it's on the other side of the hall!” Usagi said, looking frustratedly from the spot Rei vanished to the place Ami had just indicated.

 

“Only from our point of view,” Mamoru said.

 

Ranma shook her head. “I don't know nothin' about tesseracts or anythin' like that, but I do know that we gotta rescue the others, and then get out of here and find those damn talismans. Do we got a way to do that, or don't we?”

 

Mercury nodded, a plan springing to life within her thoughts. “I can guide Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Kamen to safe ground. In the meantime, if you can find your way to the heart of the four dimensional space, you should be able to use your power to collapse it into a traditional three dimensional space.”

 

“What about the others?”

 

“You'll have to find them in the other-dimensional space. They should be able to help you to collapse it.”

 

“What's the catch?” Ranma asked. “There's always a catch.”

 

Mercury looked hesitant. “If you aren't careful, collapsing the four dimensional space could kill us all.”

 

“Why's that?”

 

“Imagine that there are six different versions of this house, and each version of the house can be accessed from each other version of the house. That's not really what the four dimensional space is, but it does give you a basic idea of what it's like. In this context, what you need to do is essentially to layer them back on top of each other exactly. If you aren't careful, you could end up with them...” She thought about it for a moment. “Stacked wrong. Where instead of each house's wall existing in the same place, they could crisscross the corridor, or they could materialize with us inside them.”

 

“Right. That sounds bad.”

 

Ami nodded. “It is. I'd go with you, but we're running out of time, and I'm the only one who can guide Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Kamen safely out of this spatial distortion.”

 

Ranma looked from Ami, to Mamoru, and then to Usagi. She held open her hand, palm upwards, and in a flash, the Silence Glaive appeared in her hands. Her clothing burst apart into a stream of purple ribbons for just a moment before reforming into her Senshi Fuku. “Ready,” she said.

 

“Good luck, Saturn-chan,” Usagi said, looking Ranma directly in the eyes. “Bring everyone back safe. I believe in you.”

 

Ranma nodded.

 

Ami studied her computer for a moment. “OK,” she said. “Step forward now to enter the other-dimensional space.”

 

Ranma stepped forward, and vanished into thin air.

 

---------------

 

Of all the things she could have done, volunteering to cast herself into the heart of a four dimensional construct was probably not the brightest thing that Ranma Saotome could have chosen. At least, not if she valued her own survival first and foremost. There's the thing, though: she didn't. Venus, Mars, and Jupiter were in danger. What's more, Usagi and Mamoru were in danger. Hell, for that matter, Uranus and Neptune were in danger. If they didn't recover their talismans, they would both die, and for all that they had been nothing but a pain in the butt to her, and had attacked her on multiple occasions, she couldn't just let them die. She'd never be able to live with herself. So it was with no small degree of determination to succeed that Ranma stepped into the other-dimensional access point.

 

From Ranma's perspective, Usagi, Mamoru, Ami, and all the walls, ceilings and floors of the house simply vanished. One moment she was standing in the dark hallway, the next moment she was standing in a vast, incredible temple of long-dead gods, with innumerable black stone columns reaching up from a floor of damp slabs up into an aerial ocean of light that appeared to serve as a roof for the structure.

 

Ranma stared. What the hell was this? It was... beautiful. She walked along the columns for several minutes, staring in wonder, the heels of her nearly knee-length boots clicking loudly on the damp stone slabs that served the temple as a floor. “Mars! Venus! Jupiter! Are ya here?” she called finally. Her voice echoed through the place strangely, and the echoes waxed and waned for some time through the strange resonance of the place. As the last echoes faded, a sense of watchfulness settled over the building, and she shivered.

She knew where she wasn't wanted. Thinking she could see an exit to the temple in the distance, Ranma headed for a distant light. She walked for several minutes, and it didn't seem to get any closer. Then, after about ten minutes of walking, the light seemed to race up to her all at once; it was an exit, but even as she got close enough to step through, the light of it failed. For a moment, she had a vision of utter, absolute solitude in infinite, sightless, soundless space.

 

She concentrated briefly, flaring her aura, and began to glow with a faint blue light.

 

That was a mistake. Ranma knew it even as she flared her aura. The light of her ki showed shapes in the empty space that were beyond words. *Things* writhed there. Things which defied description. Her aura winked out, and she shuddered.

 

It was about then that she heard the sound, and even as she did, she realized that it had been present all along. There. Almost infinitely faint yet vibrant and unmistakably musical, yet its impact held such wildness that it felt like brushing her fingers across sandpaper. It was beautiful. It was beautiful and it was terrible, and there was no sign of Rei, or Minako, or Makoto.

 

There, lost in the other-dimensional space, Ranma Saotome began to feel truly alone.

 

--------------

 

Through snow and wind and fury, she walked, ice frozen against her cheek instead of rain. Her dark hair was frost-rimmed now, speckled with snow and ice, making Akane Tendo look prematurely old. The black star no longer flickered, but was writ upon her forehead, a visible sign of her condition for all that had eyes to see.

 

Booming footfalls echoed in the distance.

 

She shivered. This was bad. This was really, really bad. She was losing feeling in her extremities. Akane didn't know much about winter survival, but she was pretty sure that was really, really bad.

 

Even as the thought occurred to her, she felt warmer. A darkness flowed out from her, and the ice against her flesh melted. She felt warm.

 

The footfalls grew louder, and the ground beneath her began to vibrate in time to them.

 

That was definitely odd. Akane looked up; a barrier field had formed around her in a sphere shape, wrought from a murky, shadowy kind of light; an effect like small swirling patches of black oil floating on the surface of a pond. Wind and snow parted around her, leaving her untouched, and blasting all the more furiously on the space around her.

 

“Did I... do that?” she asked. Even as she voiced her question, she knew that the answer was yes. She had willed it, and it had happened. She smiled, feeling much more confident now. Confident in the rightness of her course of action, and confident in her ability to handle herself in this new supernatural arena that Ranma had become apart of.

 

She came to a stop in front of the Tomoe house. She was here. It was time. She took in her surroundings one last time... and her eyes fell upon the great, dread Ithaqua, striding slowly, purposefully towards the Tomoe house, moving its slow thighs while all about it reeled snow, and wind, and ice. The city was freezing before it, and the awful gaze of the great creature was upon her.

 

Raw, primal horror rose up within Akane's mind, and it nearly unmade her. She ran in panic for the door, and gave no thought to the fact that it opened for her even as she approached it. She dashed inside, slammed the door, sank to her knees, and began to cry.

 

“Where are you Ranma?” she whispered piteously.

 

--------------

 

Through half-seen realms of nightmare and wonder, Ranma walked in silence, ever searching for the other Senshi she knew were trapped here. Distantly, she heard a noise like a door slamming shut, but it echoed strangely off of opalescent towers in worlds of smoke and half-truths. And then, over the next rise, beyond the field of human ears and the great tree wrought from Truth itself, whose voice was ever spilling into the ears that grew up all around it, there came a sound that was startling in its conventionality: the shout of a teenaged girl.

 

“MARS FLAME SNIPER!”

 

Brandishing the Silence Glaive, Ranma - Sailor Saturn - leaped up to the top of the rise just in time to see the residual flash of Sailor Mars's attack. She was locked in combat with a beast whose shape defied easy description. It was a terrible, almost indescribable thing, easily larger than a bus. `A shapeless congerie of protoplasmic bubbles, faintly self-luminous, and with myriads of temporary eyes forming and un-forming as pustules of greenish light all over the massive front' (1) bearing down on the Senshi of Mars with all the eldritch might at its disposal. A small section of its mass was singed near the front, but even as Ranma watched, the burn mark was fading away.

 

“Hey Mars!” Saturn called, trying to sound casual. “Need a hand with that?”

 

Mars looked up, and the light of hope entered into her eyes. “Sailor Saturn!” she said. “Where did you come from?”

 

“Mercury sent me through to give you guys a hand. We're still in the house, she said. We're just in... uh... other-dim... other... look, I ain't the one best qualified to explain it, but we're still in the house, and we have ta get back to Mercury, Moon, and, uh ... Tux...boy.”

 

In spite of the gravity of her situation, and in spite of her relief at no longer being alone, Sailor Mars glared at Saturn. “That's Tuxedo Kamen-sama to you!”

 

“Whatever. Let's get this party started.” Ranma raised the Silence Glaive. “Silence Glaive...!” she began, and deadly purple energy began to collect around the blade.

 

“Wait!” Mars called, dodging another of the creature's attacks. “You can't! If we're still in the house, you might blow the whole thing up!”

 

Saturn lowered the Silence Glaive and ground her teeth in frustration. What good were these powers if she couldn't *use* them?

 

Two cruel laughs rang out from behind the Shoggoth, then, and two young women appeared, floating in mid-air. In all aspects aside from their colouring, they were identical. They were beautiful and cold, wearing identical black skirts with identical tops, save that one's top was highlighted in blue, and the other with red. One had blue hair, the other, red. One had blue eyes, the other, red. They bore identical staves, save that one bore a blue star, the other, red.

 

“That's right, Sailor Saturn,” the one in blue said. The one in red continued, and their voices were the same. “You are helpless here. If you use your powers, you can kill us, but you will also kill your friends.”

 

Saturn's eyes narrowed. “Who are you?”

The two young women smiled identical smiles. “We are Cyprine and Ptilol, Sailor Saturn. Helpless as you are, unless you wish to kill your friends, we are the last thing you are ever going to see.”

 

“BURNING MANDALA!” Mars shouted, sending a volley of fiery rings into the hide of the Shoggoth just before she had to leap clear as it flung itself at her once more. “Damn,” she cursed, “This thing is tough. Saturn, hurry up and deal with them so you can help me!”

 

Cyprine blasted Saturn with a bolt of blue energy.

 

“Silence Wall!” Saturn shouted, and the bolt splashed harmlessly against the barrier. Unfortunately, the time it had taken to raise the barrier had allowed Ptilol to get behind her and send a blast of red energy straight into her back. The impact blasted her forward several feet across the grass, leaving bleeding furrows in the ground beneath it. The blood that seeped up out of the ground quickly turned black and began to bubble as tiny life-forms were spawned from it. Many limbed, flopping, tentacled things, some with eyes, others without, and none the same shape as any other. The creatures dissolved back into the black blood after a few seconds.

 

Saturn dropped the silence glaive and smirked confidently. “You're right,” she said. “I can't beat you with my Senshi powers.”

 

Ptilol teleported next to Cyprine, and the two looked down at the Senshi of Ruin imperiously. “Are you giving up, then?” Cyprine asked contemptuously.

 

“Yeah right. I can't beat you with my Senshi powers. Lucky for me, I got more than that to work with.”

 

The twins' confidence wavered for a split second, and Saturn sprang into action. She was on them in a flash, fighting in mid-air at blinding speed, and though they were able to teleport to safety, it was clear that such an attack had surprised them.

 

“What? You think you can beat us with your bare hands?” Ptilol asked incredulously.

 

“Mouko Takabisha!” Saturn cried, sending out an intense blast of pure blue ki.

 

Ptilol twirled her red staff, deflecting the attack easily. It flew off to the right and exploded against the bubbling hide of the Shoggoth, which reeled back in pain, giving Sailor Mars the seconds she needed to recover from its latest assault and take the offensive again.

 

“MARS FIRE SNAKE!” she shouted, sending forth a great blast of fire which in mid-flight took the shape of a great snake and quickly encircled the Shoggoth, surrounding it with heat and light on all sides.

 

“Die!” Cyprine yelled, and sent a volley of blue energy bolts at Sailor Saturn, who seemed to vanish, only to reappear a moment later when she collided to the energy shield that Ptilol was generating around her partner.

 

“Damnit,” Saturn hissed as she fell to the ground.

 

Ptilol and Cyprine both gestured with their staves, sending out an intense volley of red and blue energy bolts at the spot where Saturn had struck the ground. There was a small explosion. A moment later, Saturn came leaping out of the smoke, singed but otherwise unharmed.

 

`No choice,' Saturn thought. `If I don't end this now, that thing is gonna eat Sailor Mars. Her mind quickly ran down her list of tactical options, until... “Mars, get down!” She gathered her power into her hands. “Kijin Raishu Dan!” she yelled, projecting a vacuum blade directly at the Shoggoth.

 

Mars dropped to the ground, and the vacuum blade passed right through the space her head had occupied and sliced deeply into the mutating hide of the beast.

 

The Shoggoth roared in fury, mouths forming and shrieking all over its body before dissolving back into its mass. “Tekeli-li!” each mouth shrieked, again and again and again and all at once and at intervals, until the sound of it was nearly deafening. It shifted its great bulk and flung itself at Saturn, who easily evaded its clumsy attack. Cyprine and Ptilol, on the other hand, were caught by surprise. Cyprine barely had time to get out of the way, but Ptilol did not. The Shoggoth's great bulk slammed into her, and flowed around her, its flesh parting like water at first, and then closing in, engulfing her body within itself.

 

Ptilol barely had time to scream before she was torn asunder within it and then *absorbed* by the angry beast. Her agonized face briefly formed on the monster's surface as it gorged itself upon her outraged individuality - and then she was simply gone.

 

“You bitch!” Cyprine shrieked at Saturn, true horror filling her mind as the connection she had with her other self was snuffed out as if it had never been. “You BITCH!” She began to glow with a terrible blue light. “Death is too good for you! I'll send you straight into Azathoth's maw for this!” Space began to distort wildly around her, and she screamed in fury mixed with grief and horror.

 

Saturn stared incredulously at the Shoggoth, not quite able to come to terms with what, exactly, had just happened. “What the hell?” she asked. She looked up at Cyprine. “Wait, I didn't...”

 

A burning bow and arrow appeared in Sailor Mars' hand, and she took aim. “MARS FLAME SNIPER!” she cried out, and released the arrow.

 

The space behind Cyprine unfolded like origami, and in that moment, for only that moment, reality came apart at the seams. Raw, nuclear chaos invaded the ordered universe. The portal was opened, and beyond it, outside the ordered universe, Saturn and Mars looked upon madness itself. There, from the inconceivable, unlighted chambers beyond space and time, the music that Ranma had heard earlier sprang forth undiluted, the mad cacophony of warbled, mindless, blasphemous sound that some have called the music of the spheres. There came the pounding of horrible drums, and the mad piping of blasphemous flutes, and there, for just a moment, they glimpsed the daemon-sultan Azathoth himself, greatest of the Chaos spawn, gnawing hungrily in chaos amid pounding and piping and the hellish dancing of the Other Gods, blind, voiceless, tenebrous, and mindless, whose soul and messenger is Nyarlathotep.

 

It was only a moment, but it was a moment of infinite width. It was all coming apart. Horror and madness battered against the fortresses of the Senshi's minds, and the magic that was inherent in their Star Seeds warred against it, preserving them, shielding them. The balance surged one way, and then the other, and it seemed as though the power of their star seeds had begun to fail...

 

And then Mars's arrow of flame struck Cyprine in the heart. She screamed voicelessly as she lost control of the portal, and it spun shut on top of her with a snap-hiss, leaving in its wake no sign that she had ever been.

 

Saturn and Mars glanced at the sated Shoggoth and shuddered, the power of their Star Seeds repelling the last of the supernatural madness that had threatened to claim them both.

 

“Let's get the hell out of here,” Saturn said.

 

Mars nodded mutely.

 

-----------------

 

An click, faint but very clear, like a seatbelt being buckled or a door being locked, brought Akane out of her horrified reverie. She looked up just in time to avoid being punched in the face by a vaguely female creature which appeared to be made of straight-jackets.

 

“You've got to be kidding,” she said, ducking under its follow up.

 

“The master is not fond of intruders,” the Daimon said, glaring at Akane intensely.

 

“I'm not leaving here without Ranma,” Akane said confidently, dropping into a fighting stance.

 

The Daimon's gaze fell upon the black star on her forehead, and it stopped. It looked at her very carefully, and its eyes widened. “You!”

 

“Me?” Akane asked.

 

“Why are you here? You shouldn't be fighting us. You should be helping us!”

 

“I don't know what you're talking about, but I'm not about to help Ranma's enemies. Kiyaa!” Akane lashed out at the creature with a powerful punch; the Daimon breezed right past her fist, seized her by the wrist with one hand and planted its other hand on her collarbone, fingers digging into her flesh. It lifted her easily and slammed her, back first, into the floor. The force of the impact knocked the wind out of her, and she gasped for breath.

 

“If you won't listen to reason,” the Daimon said, “I guess I'll just have to use other means.” It gestured, and cloth flowed out from its form, wrapping itself around Akane's body until she was bound tightly in a straight-jacket.

 

Akane glared furiously at the Daimon and struggled against her bonds in vain, her rage only increased by her helplessness. “I'll kill you!” she shouted.

 

The Daimon smiled cruelly. “Not today, I think.” It put both of its hands on her shoulders, and they both sank into the floor.

 

END CHAPTER 08

 

Author's Notes:

 

1 - H. P. Lovecraft, At The Mountains of Madness