Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction / Sailor Moon Fan Fiction / Crossover Fan Fiction ❯ Reflections of Ruin ❯ The Messiah of Silence, Part I ( Chapter 16 )

Empty spaces - what are we living for?

Abandoned places - I guess we know the score...

On and on

Does anybody know what we are looking for?

Another hero - another mindless crime.

Behind the curtain, in the pantomime.

Hold the line!

Does anybody want to take it anymore?

 

- The Show Must Go On, Queen

 

- FOUR HOURS EARLIER -

 

It was dark and she was cold. So cold. The air was damp, and something cold and hard was biting into her ankles and wrists. It smelled like mold and fungus, damp earth and corpse-rot. Her throat was completely dry, and she desperately needed water. She didn't want to wake up here. She wanted to remain within the world of dreams. The smell of corpse-rot, however, is not a thing easily ignored. Nabiki Tendo came back to full awareness and opened her eyes.

 

Her father's dead body stood bound to the wall opposite her. His face was missing, and tiny living things writhed within the ruin that remained.

 

For a long moment, her father's corpse was all that she could see. Father. Corpse. Writhing things. Faceless.

 

Her world dissolved.

 

Nabiki wasn't sure how much time had passed, but she suddenly realized that she was screaming. Her throat felt raw, and it hurt, but she couldn't stop. Her father was dead. She shut her eyes, but the smell washed over her like the awful truth of what lay before her.

 

Daddy was dead.

 

How... how had this happened? How had she gotten here? The last thing she remembered was... she had been running out in the street. There had been more of those, those things. Those pale monsters. She, Kasumi, and Nodoka had been running for their lives. In spite of her horror, she had maintained presence of mind enough to know that they were heading towards the Nekohanten. She could see its lights in the distance, and she had known that if only they could make it there, they would be safe. Then something had grabbed her from behind, and everything went dark.

 

...

 

She managed to shut her mouth, and she bit her tongue so hard she drew blood. Her mouth filled with the taste of her own blood. She wanted to gag, but it felt good to have something liquid in her hopelessly parched mouth. She swallowed.

 

She wouldn't open her eyes. She wouldn't look at him. Wouldn't see. She knew it wouldn't go away, but it didn't hurt as much if she didn't look at it. She was crying, she knew, and she couldn't stop, but she kept silent now, her screaming fit well and truly done.

 

Ever the shrewd one, her mind began to race almost immediately in spite of the horror and the fear that bubbled up within her, filling her stomach with an awful, quivering sort of feeling. `Think, Nabiki, think. You're still alive. If they'd wanted you dead, you wouldn't have woken up. That means they need you for something.' She opened her eyes, and the shock of seeing her father's corpse hanging there not five feet in front of her nearly unmade her. Summoning her reserves of will, Nabiki Tendo steeled herself and forced herself to ignore it. She looked around, taking in her surroundings.

 

She was in a cold stone chamber in what looked like a natural cave. The only light in the room came from phosphorescent fungus growing across the ceiling. The sickly green light they provided did nothing for improving the looks of her surroundings. Water trickled down the walls of the cave. Further inspection revealed that only three of the walls were natural: the fourth was a wall made of black stone clearly carved by the hands of an intelligent being, in the center of which was a very plain wooden door. She was bound to a wet stone wall with steel shackles on both her hands and her feet. Her wrists and ankles were chaffed, and her right wrist was bleeding slightly. That would get infected, her mind noted clinically. This place wasn't exactly sanitary. She wasn't the prospective medical student that Kasumi was, but she'd been around both Kasumi and Doctor Tofu long enough to know the basics. This was bad. This was really, really bad.

 

Aside from her father's body, she was alone.

 

She wouldn't look at him. If she looked at him, she'd break down again. Swallowing another mouthful of blood, though the flow had lessened now, she looked towards the door.

 

“Hello?” she called. The weak, raw, hoarse quality of her own voice was startling. She almost broke down into helpless sobbing, but Nabiki Tendo was made of sterner stuff than even she had ever suspected: she steeled herself once more, fixed her eyes on the door, and called again, this time in a stronger voice, “Hello? Is someone there?”

 

Something was there. Out in the corridor. A quivering fear rested there, beyond the door. A fear not located within Nabiki herself. And though no earthly thing was there save the faintest stirring of the air, through the door's barred window, she knew that her gaze had been met. Something. A ghastly shape in the darkness. It leered at her even as her only human mind refused to perceive its form. For a moment, its dark and terrible presence threatened to overwhelm her...

 

She shut her eyes and looked away.

 

`Damnit, damnit, I have to be stronger than this. Think, Nabiki. THINK. What do they want? What could they possibly want with you? What can you use?'

 

The door opened. The door opened, and the dark, terrible presence of the thing in the hallway flowed towards her like a rotting tide. Bile rose up in the back of her throat. She clenched her eyes shut and shook her head. She wouldn't vomit. She wouldn't scream. She wouldn't scream. She wouldn't give this THING the satisfaction. It was in front of her now. She could feel its hot, sour breath on her face. She could almost taste it, like sewage on her tongue. She WOULDN'T scream.

 

“Peace. Leave us.”

 

It took a few seconds for the sound of the watery but recognizably human voice to register in Nabiki's mind. By the time it did, the dark presence was already departing from the room. A few seconds later, it had faded back into the hallway, and the sound of the door swinging shut echoed loudly.

 

Footsteps on the stone floor, coming closer.

 

“You can open your eyes now,” the owner of that watery voice said. “It's gone.”

 

She did. Before her stood a man dressed all in black, with strange runes inscribed all over his clothing. He was an unpleasant looking man, with a strangely narrow head, an almost flat nose, and bulging, too large eyes that rarely blinked, but at least he was recognizably a man.

 

Even in her relief, even in the wake of such terror, Nabiki remained her calculating self: she let out a shuddering sigh of relief, and a thrill shot through her as he smiled, clearly pleased with the way things were going already. “Who are you?” she asked in a weak, frightened voice. She wasn't faking that fear anywhere near as much as she wished we were.

 

His smile widened ever so slightly. “I'm your only hope in this place, Nabiki Tendo. I'm going to make you an offer you can't refuse.”

 

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

 

Reflections of Ruin

by P.H. Wise

A Ranma/Sailor Moon/Cthulhu Mythos Crossover Fukufic

 

Chapter 16 - The Messiah of Silence, Part I

 

Disclaimer: I don't own Ranma. I don't own Sailor Moon. Please don't sue me. I'm not doing this for profit.

 

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

 

- NOW -

 

It was night, but the red haze of distant fires made it hard to see the stars. The moon shone brightly overhead. United they stood within the courtyard of the Hikawa Shrine, the Four Soldiers of the Guardian Guards, Tuxedo Kamen, and Usagi Tsukino. All in a circle, hand in hand, they stood, summoning forth the power of their respective planets.

 

“VENUS CRYSTAL POWER!” A brilliant aura of gold sprung up. A moment later, a deep fiery red aura joined it with a cry of, “MARS CRYSTAL POWER!” “MERCURY STAR POWER!” An icy blue aura joined the first two. “JUPITER CRYSTAL POWER!” A verdant green aura joined the first three.

 

Tuxedo Kamen concentrated, putting forth his might. Beneath him, the Earth responded. A shimmering aura sprang up around him, shining with the brilliant golds and blues of all the saints. For a moment, a crossed circle appeared on his forehead, and then his clothing changed: his tuxedo and cape was replaced all at once with a suit of shining armour, a sword sheathed at his side.

 

“MOON COSMIC POWER!” Sailor Moon called, and an aura of white light sprang up around her.

 

Then, all together, they completed the incantation: “SAILOR TELEPORT!”

 

Power surged around them, and debris floated into the air... and then, nothing. The power faded, and they were left standing there, blinking at each other in surprise.

 

“What happened?” Venus asked.

 

Mercury produced her computer and performed a quick analysis. After a moment, she shook her head. “It's no good. There's a shield around Mugen Gakuen that's preventing us from teleporting in at this distance.” She studied the readings for a few moments longer. “But if this readings are accurate, it's only shielded against long range teleports. If we can get close to the building, we'll be able to teleport through the shield.”

 

Jupiter smiled grimly. “Right. Looks like we're doing this the hard way.” She cracked her knuckles.

 

“Not necessarily,” Venus said, thinking quickly. “Maybe we can't teleport directly inside the school, but what's stopping us from teleporting to just outside the school, and then teleporting inside from there?”

 

Mercury blinked, genuinely surprised that she hadn't thought of that first. She punched a few numbers into her computer and glanced over the results. “No good,” she said. “We used up a lot of power even with that failed attempt.” At the questioning looks the others directed her way, she explained: “Teleporting uses up significantly more energy than any other power we have, and although we recover it fairly quickly, if we try to do two more teleports in rapid succession, there will be a ten minute window in which we'll all be too exhausted to defend ourselves.” She thought about it, “Except for Usagi-chan, but even she wouldn't be at 100%.”

 

“Would teleporting twice me more draining than potentially fighting our way close enough to teleport once?” Venus asked.

 

Mercury nodded. “There's at least an 80% chance of us being better off fighting our way in than we would be teleporting twice.”

 

Venus sighed dramatically. It HAD sounded too easy. “Right,” she said, and looked to Usagi expectantly.

 

Usagi didn't look too pleased at the prospect of running and possibly fighting all the way to the Mugen Gakuen building, especially now that she had proven unable to transform into Sailor Moon. Ami had said it was because she now had full access to her powers and that technically, what she couldn't do was transform back into a human, but it didn't feel the same. Still, there was little else that could be done about it, and as their Queen, it was time to give the orders. “Sailor Senshi,” she said, and they all looked to her. “Ima yo.”

 

They nodded as one, and dashed off into the night.

 

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

 

- THREE AND A HALF HOURS EARLIER -

 

“What do you want from me?” Nabiki asked, trying very hard to hold on to her intellectual capacity in the midst of the storm of emotion that raged within her.

 

The Dark Man smiled a friendly, neighborly sort of smile. “You're a smart girl, Nabiki. Why don't you tell me?”

 

Nabiki met the man's gaze, and almost managed not to flinch. Her thoughts were racing again. “You don't want to kill me. If you'd wanted that, you could have done so long before I woke up. You want me off guard and off balance, otherwise you wouldn't have left the body here. But as for what you want with me...” she shook her head and forced herself not to look at Soun's corpse. “I'm a normal person. It doesn't make any sense. Normally, people come after Akane or Ranma.”

 

“You're so close. So very close.”

 

Nabiki blinked. “You want me because of my connection to either Ranma or Akane.”

 

The Dark Man nodded.

 

“I won't help you hurt them.”

 

“So brave, so righteous. But is that who you really are, Nabiki Tendo? And do you really want to protect the monster that killed your mother?”

 

Nabiki's eyes widened and she very nearly shouted a denial before she managed to get control of her emotions. The shackles on her wrists and ankles bit cruelly into her flesh from the strain she was putting against them. “Why should I believe anything you have to say?”

 

The Dark Man shrugged. “Because I have much more to gain by telling you the truth than by lying to you.” He gestured, and a mirrored ball appeared in the air next to him. “Behold.”

 

Nabiki looked into the ball. Her perceptions shifted, and she had just enough time to curse herself for being fooled before she felt a sense of tugging, and everything went dark.

 

A moment later, she was walking with two other girls and a very tall woman with a kind face.

 

Her mother.

 

HER MOTHER!

 

She couldn't control her own movements. Couldn't do anything but ride along in her young body. Something dark swooped down from above, descending upon Akane. They all screamed, she and Akane and Kasumi, as the dark shape invaded Akane's body. Their mother strode forward shouting... something? Her battle aura glowed visibly around her. Then the darkness in Akane lashed out, and her mother's aura guttered out like a candle.

 

There was another rush of perception, and Nabiki was suddenly back in the cell again with the cold and the damp and the Dark Man. She struggled to repress the urge to vomit. “What... the hell... was that?”

 

“Your memory, Nabiki Tendo. Akane hasn't been your sister for ten years now.”

 

“What is she, then?”

 

“A common enemy. The spawn of a being known as Pharaoh 90 who seeks the end of this world. She is Mistress 9.”

 

“Why should I believe that you aren't just showing me what you want me to see?”

 

The Dark Man shrugged. “I suppose I could. Let's try a different approach, then. How would you like for me to bring your father back to life?”

 

Nabiki stared at the man. “... You can do that?”

 

“Life's easy,” he said, snorting dismissively. “Life is just nature's way of keeping meat fresh.” The Dark Man gestured, and the writhing things in the wreck of Soun's face responded instantly, burrowed further down into his flesh until they vanished within, leaving terrible oozing holes in their wake.

 

Then the remains of his face began to change.

 

Nabiki watched in horrified fascination as his torn and jagged flesh knit itself back together, visibly writhing and twisting horribly until it was once again HIS face. Her daddy's face.

 

He took a breath and opened his eyes.

 

Nabiki stared, her eyes wide and her jaw dropped open.

 

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

 

- NOW -

 

“FIRE SOUL!” Mars called, sending an intense blast of flame towards the pair of Deep Ones that even now dashed towards her. They collapsed, shrieking in agony as the flames devoured their flesh.

 

“Mars, stop!” Usagi cried, rushing to the side of the writhing, burning Deep Ones.

 

Mars withdrew her power from the burning foes as Usagi approached them, snuffing out the flames in an instant. “Usagi! You could have been hurt!” she snapped.

 

“We can't kill them!” Usagi said, putting her hand on the charred flesh of one of the two, now dying, Deep Ones. “They used to be human.”

 

Mars' eyes widened. She looked down at the two creatures in shock. “Can you... do anything for them, Usagi-chan?”

 

Usagi looked down on the charred Deep Ones with compassion. They struggled, reaching for her, desiring only her death but unable to move; her heart was moved to pity. “It's OK,” she said, stroking each of their foreheads in turn. “Everything will be fine. You'll see.” A faint light began to shine, centered in the palm of her hand, and the strange, fish-frog features of the Deep Ones... dissolved. Faded. Their flesh lost its tortured, twisted shape and flowed easily, like water down a hill, back into human form.

 

The Senshi stared.

 

At that moment, a blast of deadly green energy came flying at Usagi from off to the side. She staggered backwards out of the way, but the two newly healed men were unable to do so: the beam washed over them; for a split second, their eyes opened, and they screamed.

 

Then they burst apart in a shower of orange goo.

 

Usagi stared at the remains, utterly horrified. “No,” she whispered.

 

Another blast lanced out from inside the remains of a nearby home, missing Usagi by mere inches.

 

“Usagi, we have to go!” Venus said.

 

Usagi didn't move.

 

“Endymion-sama,” Venus said, gesturing to him.

 

Endymion nodded, and took Usagi by the hand. She responded to that, looking up into his face.

 

“Mamo-chan?” she asked.

 

“Usako, we have to go,” he said gently.

 

She burst into tears, but she followed him regardless.

 

“Minna,” Venus said, “We should avoid them as much as you can. If we win, we can come try to heal them later, but our first priority should be to get to Mugen Gakuen and stop the Death Busters.”

 

The others nodded, and they dashed off down the darkened street.

 

War had come to Minato. War between the Death Busters and the Old Ones. Flopping, hybrid humanoid fish-frog things swarmed through the streets of the Minato Ward leaving death and chaos in their wake. Armed with glowing tridents, they blasted everything in sight, which at the moment included the Senshi. Yet even as the swarm bore down on the Sailor Senshi, a contingent of female humanoid monsters that looked like they had been grown from whatever happened to have been lying around at the time - basketballs, cars, video games, purses, and on and on - burst up from the ground and tore into the fish-frog things, and the empty streets echoed with the sound of their combat.

 

The Senshi, with Prince Endymion in tow, dashed away from the battle site. Even as they fled the scene, reinforcements joined the Deep Ones: a vast contingent of Moon-beasts mingled together with strange, Satyr-like beings charged into the fray.

 

Their route took them through a destroyed supermarket, its glass doors shattered and its far wall simply gone, the smell of spoiled food thick in the air. They were only inside for half a minute, but the taste of rotting vegetables and spoiled meat stayed with them for almost ten minutes afterwards. Then it was across what had once been a major road, dotted with wrecked and stalled automobiles, and then they were racing down the sidewalk, gutted storefronts all around them. In the distance, they could see the form of Mugen Gakuen rising up out of the ruined city, enshrouded in its pink barrier.

 

It was like that for most of the way to the school. They came across large groups of monsters, small groups of monsters, large group of monsters battling even larger groups of monsters. Slowly but surely, the constant invocation of their attacks began to take its toll on their energy reserves. Though the monsters were individually no match for Usagi and the others, their group numbered only six. Through it all there were two things that held true universally: everywhere, the Daimons fought against their unified foes, and everywhere, the Daimons were losing. Yet the Daimons did not need to win: they needed to delay. To hold off the enemy until their master was summoned was all that was required.

 

Fires burned uncontrolled, and the reek of death mingled with the smells of smoke and of Daimons and creatures beyond description, and the ice brought by Ithaqua covered most of the streets, still unmelting. Dark, awful, tainted: Minato had become a kind of hell.

 

In spite of it all, in the midst of this hell, even after having seen two men killed before her eyes, the thought that crossed Usagi's mind was this: `I guess we don't have to worry about that high school entrance exam.' She immediately felt guilty and small and petty for having thought it, but there it was.

 

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

 

The ruined cityscape rolled away beneath them as the helicopter ascended into the sky. Uranus sat at the controls, with Neptune at her side, and Saturn and Pluto in the passenger's area. The entire machine was enclosed, and all four wore earphones. As far as Saturn was able to tell, Uranus made a surprisingly good helicopter pilot. “Hey Haruka,” she said, “Where'd you learn to fly helicopters?”

 

Uranus glanced back at Saturn for a split second before returning her attention to the controls. “Learned to fly?” she asked.

 

Saturn blinked. “Uh... you do know how to fly this thing, right?” she asked.

 

Uranus only grinned, and gunned the throttle.

 

Neptune rolled her eyes.

 

Saturn swallowed nervously, now feeling considerably less safe within the helicopter. Her hand reflexively closed around the length of string that she yet held in her hands.

 

Pluto's eyes fell upon the length of string. “Feeling sentimental?” she asked.

 

Saturn looked up. “You already know, don't `cha? Ain't you the Guardian of Time?”

 

Pluto gave her a thoroughly unamused look.

 

“All right, all right,” Saturn said. “I brought it `cause if we're gonna rescue Akane, I gotta go into battle as me. It wouldn't feel right otherwise.” She reached back and began to do her loose hair up into a pigtail.

 

Pluto smiled.

 

Off in the distance, Mugen Gakuen rose high above the surrounding ruined landscape, surrounded by its shield-shield.

 

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

 

- THREE HOURS, TWENTY FIVE MINUTES EARLIER -

 

“Na, Nabiki?” Soun asked confusedly. He strained against his bonds for a moment, and then relaxed. “Where are we?”

 

Nabiki felt her resolve breaking. She felt a terrific wave of relief and gratitude welling up within her, and it took every ounce of steel she possessed to quell it. To not become daddy's little girl and cry out with joy. She knew that if she indulged in such emotions, she would be lost. “I see,” she said, and managed to keep most of what she felt out of her voice. “What are your terms?”

 

The Dark Man grinned shark-like, and his stained yellow teeth glinted in the mushroom-light. “You will do everything I tell you to do without question, or I will undo your father's resurrection.”

 

“Where are we?” Soun asked again, now beginning to panic. He looked to the Dark Man. “Who are you? What are you doing to us? Let my daughter go! You can do whatever you want to me, but let my daughter go!” Tears began to flow down his cheeks.

 

Nabiki abandoned all pretense of appearing as a frightened little girl: she didn't need to pretend what had become very much a reality, and the effort of doing so in addition to trying to think a way out of this was taxing her mental resources. “Not good enough,” she said as coldly as she could manage. “I want specific terms. If I'm going to help you, I want to know everything I may be contractually obligated to do in advance, and I want my father set free and taken back to our home, I want assurances that he will remain unharmed, and I want you to leave the rest of my family alone.”

 

The Dark Man looked surprised. “Are you really going to dissemble when your father's life is at stake? I'm impressed.” He met Nabiki's gaze. “Very well. Here is what we require of you: Pharaoh 90 is being summoned even now. We want you to stop him by any means necessary. We believe that Mistress 9 possesses enough humanity that we will be able to use your connection to her as a weapon that will buy us enough time to put an end to the summoning. As for the rest of your family, we have no interest in them. Despite your family's demonstrated aptitude for channeling Eldritch power through your human bodies, your sister would be most unsuitable for this task.”

 

“And my father?”

 

“Will assist you in your task, and be released upon its completion.”

 

Nabiki stared at the Dark Man. “What's to stop me from accepting and just going on my merry way?”

 

“You mean besides the fact that we can undo your father's resurrection at any time?” the Dark Man asked.

 

“Yes,” Nabiki said. “Besides that.”

 

“You won't,” the Dark Man said. “A deal is a deal, after all.” He smiled darkly. “Now, will you accept?”

 

Nabiki looked at her weeping, blubbering father, then at the Dark Man. “Let me think about it,” she said as coldly as she could.

 

The Dark Man held up the mirrored ball again. This time, there was no shifting of perception. This time, an image appeared within it: The Amazons at the Nekohanten were fighting off hordes of what could only be described as monsters, preventing them from reaching Kasumi and Nodoka. Nodoka wielded her sword, and black ichor coated the blade; a dead moon-beast lay at her feet; she looked halfway panicked but very determined.

 

“I am tired of playing games, Nabiki Tendo. Accept, and I will call off the attack.”

 

Nabiki shuddered. She had been outmaneuvered, and she knew it, but she'd be damned before she let him see that. “I accept,” she said.

 

The Dark Man smiled.

 

A moment later, the door of the cell swung open and the dark presence from the hallway came howling into the room. Immediately, Soun began blubbering with terror. Yet it was not the same as before. There was a sense of anticipation now that hadn't been there the last time the Thing had been in the room.

 

This time, Nabiki realized with horror, it would not be called off. This time, it would join with her. It was right in front of her now. Once again, she could taste its sour breath against her cheeks.

 

Forcing her fear down once more, Nabiki looked at the Dark Man. “What do I do?” she asked.

 

He spoke a word of power, and the Thing in the room lost cohesion, its parts separating out into cloud of phosphorescent dust. “Breathe,” he said.

 

She breathed.

 

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

 

- NOW -

 

All across the world, the Old Ones stirred in their slumber. That which had laid dead but dreaming for countless aeons woke to find that the arrival of Pharaoh 90 was nearly at hand. The Sleeping God awoke. Father Dagon and Mother Hydra rose up from the depths. Severn Valley in England collapsed into ruin, and a great, bloated blanched oval supported on myriad fleshless legs with eyes forming and vanishing across its great bulk rose up out of the wreck. The ruin of his home stirred the Lord of Dead Dreams, and deep beneath the Earth, in the lightless depths of N'kai, the Sleeper awakened at last.

 

In the United States, the news anchor for C.N.N. sat in a state of near shock, a graphic of the White House burning in the background as he delivered the news. “... Before contact was lost, the President declared Martial Law in response to attacks by, um...” he shakes his head incredulously, “We're getting reports of armies of `Fish Men' attacking the Eastern Seaboard. We're going live now to White House correspondent Suzanne Malveaux. Suzanne?”

 

The screen changes. A woman stands on a sunlit grassy knoll, and the white house visibly burns in the background, engulfed in a tremendous firestorm. “As you can see, the White House is burning behind me. Now, there's no word on whether the President has escaped, but the Vice President is reported to have been on a visit to Canada at the time the fire began. The Capitol building has likewise been struck, ruling out the possibility of accident...” A convoy of military trucks went back in the background, and a platoon of fully armed marines walked into the shot.

 

“The military is mobilizing in force, and... oh my God.”

 

Before the reporter's terrified eyes, a horde of fish-men charged into view, each wielding a strange, trident-like weapon. The marines reacted quickly, but not quickly enough: half a dozen blasts of sickly green power from the tridents melted the entire squad of marines into puddles of orange goo on national television.

 

The reporter began to scream.

 

A moment later, an Apache helicopter swung through the shot. The camera tilted to follow it as it let loose with a tremendous burst of machine-gun fire into the group of fish-men. The bodies of the creatures were torn to shreds.

 

The screen went back to the anchorman, whose jaw was hanging open. “Suzanne, get the hell out of there!”

 

It was much the same everywhere. In England, 10 Downing Street lay in ruins beneath a towering amorphous entity that looked nothing so much like an amoeba made of tar and a huge group of moon-beasts. The Prime Minister was dead, but the Cabinet had managed to escape, and UNIT was beginning to mobilize in response to the threat.

 

The same story all over the world. France, Germany, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Israel, China, Russia, South Africa, Brazil, Canada, New Zealand, Japan. Horrid, winged hybrid things did battle on the very grounds of the Imperial Palace. They came out of nowhere, rising up as if from the earth itself. The Emperor was missing. The capital building was destroyed, the Prime Minister, dead.

 

Tokyo had become a city under siege in a world under siege.

 

United for the first time in aeons by a common threat, the Old Ones had awakened, and they found that they were strong.

 

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

 

Nabiki Tendo strode silently through the sewers beneath the Minato Ward, unphased by the stench of rot and human waste that filled the passage. Her vast, membranous wings - the most visible of the signs of her transformation - were folded around her body like a cloak. Some twenty yards behind, her father followed in her wake, with about a dozen chaos spawn another thirty behind him. Deep Ones, the fish men were called. She understood their language now.

 

She wished she didn't.

 

She tried not to look at him. Her father, that is. Looking at him, seeing his face there, wracked with fear and pain, asking her for help, asking her why she hurt him so... she didn't want to deal with that right now.

 

The sewer entrance to Mugen Gakuen was somewhere close by, and she had retained enough of her human sensibilities to wonder why the hell no one else had thought of this before her: the Daimon shield did not extend below ground. If they could break through here, they might be able to infiltrate a small force into the building and bring down the shield from within.

 

Even as she walked, a soft squishing noise accompanying her every step through that fetid place, the memory of what had been done to her rose up fresh within her mind.

 

*FLASH*

 

Nabiki breathed. She breathed, and the glowing dust flowed into her lungs like the tide. At once she felt the terrible alien otherness of the thing as a pressure against her mind. Though she tried to resist, the pressure of it grew rapidly, more and more. Her body quivered as the Eldritch power of the creature began to change her, twisting her internal organs, shifting her bones in ways never intended by nature.

 

She clenched her teeth, determined not to scream. She wouldn't lose herself. Not this time. Great swathes of unnaturally pale, almost white pigmentation began to wind their way across her flesh, blotting out her natural skin tone. Her eyes burst, and she hissed in pain as their gooey remnants spilled out onto the floor. Then there was a sickening sense of writhing in her eye sockets. A few moments later, she found that she could see again: her eyes had returned, though not unchanged.

 

Through it all, the terrible, alien pressure in her mind grew, and grew, and grew. It began to seep in through the cracks. It was rising now, devouring her from the inside. An horrific pain tore through her shoulder blades accompanied by the sound of grinding bones: she was growing wings, and she had never felt a pain like it in all her life.

 

Soun whimpered in horror.

 

She wouldn't be taken by this thing. She wouldn't be taken by this thing. She wouldn't let it have her. She wouldn't go down without a fight. There, in the back of her mind, she felt something... something like a door. An open door.

 

Even as the alien mind of the creature devoured her, a last, desperate thought rippled through her increasingly frantic awareness: a door once opened may be stepped through in either direction.

 

With a strength born of sheer desperation, Nabiki flung her tattered awareness through that door and into the Beast's mind.

 

*FLASH*

 

She still wasn't sure who had come out on top, her or the monster. Maybe it didn't matter. The Dark Man had commanded her, and she had obeyed without question.

 

There. Off in the distance, a pair of Daimons stood guard before a large steel doorway. Nabiki's blood red eyes began to glow. She blurred forward into their midst. Before they could even register her presence, she had already shoved her hand through the chest of the first Daimon. Having no claws, this was done by raw strength. The Daimon burst apart into a handful of rulers and a broken Daimon egg.

 

The second Daimon reacted quickly, leaping backwards and preparing to fire a blast of dark energy from the black star upon its forehead. “You won't gain access to the Master's Lair!” it cried.

 

Those were the last words it ever spoke. It was fast, but Nabiki was faster. Even as it prepared to attack her, Nabiki lunged forward and tore its head from its shoulders.

 

The Daimon vanished, leaving a telescope and a broken Daimon egg in its wake.

 

Shaking her head at the weakness of these creatures, Nabiki threw open the steel door and strode into the basement of Mugen Gakuen.

 

She wouldn't look at her father.

 

She didn't want to deal with that right now.

 

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

 

Mercury's computer gave a sudden beep: they were in range to teleport within the energy shield around Mugen Gakuen. Great. Now if only they weren't surrounded by hordes of ravening monsters beyond count. Even as she thought it, a group of Moon Beasts rushed out of a nearby storefront.

 

For several minutes, their whole world seemed a whirling madhouse of magic and death as the Senshi fought simply to stay alive before the press of creatures from beyond, and more and more were arriving every moment: even as the last Moon Beast fell, six Daimons projected their fluid bodies out from the shield around the building.

 

Venus dropped to the ground just in time to evade one of them and cut it in half with her sword as it went overhead. “Chikishou,” she cursed. This wasn't like anything they had faced before: this was all out war, and they were caught in the no-mans land between Mugen Gakuen and the other monsters that had laid siege to it.

 

In the storefront, the Deep Ones took up defensive positions and began firing at Senshi and Daimon alike. The dark of night obscured them partially, making it harder to see where they were shooting from.

 

“Remind me who thought this was a good idea?” Mars asked as she ducked under the blast of a Deep One's trident. She whirled around and returned fire with a burst of flaming rings and a shout of “BURNING MANDALA!” She didn't hit it, but she did force it to take cover.

 

“This is never going to work,” Jupiter hissed, dodging a Daimon's charge and then slamming a ball of electricity into its gooey stomach. “There's too many!”

 

Usagi concentrated. She knew she didn't have the Moon Spiral Heart Rod anymore, but if the power was inside her anyways, then maybe, maybe she could call it out without the weapon. She raised her hand, and a tiny mote of pink energy appeared just above her palm. “MOON SPIRAL HEART ATTACK!” she called.

 

The results were unexpected. Instead of the normal energy heart, the pinprick of pink energy flared violently; a tremendous blast of holy power radiated out from her, leaving her friends unharmed but utterly disintegrating every true spawn of Chaos within a 100 meter radius. The Deep Ones were a different matter. Some it unmade, but most were left very human, very alive, very confused, and almost certainly doomed. Usagi nearly lost herself to sorrow at the sight of them, and the sure knowledge that though she had saved their souls, here, in the middle of this war zone, she couldn't save their lives: even as they recovered from the healing, they began to die, set upon by their former fellows. She immediately fell to her knees, drained, but not before she grabbed onto Mars' and Mercury's hands. “Minna, we have to do it now...”

 

The other Senshi nodded and quickly joined hands, even as the monsters regrouped and prepared to charge again.

 

“MERCURY STAR POWER!”

“MARS CRYSTAL POWER!”

“JUPITER CRYSTAL POWER!”

“VENUS CRYSTAL POWER!”

 

At that moment, a tremendous roar rang out from the ranks of the chaos spawn, and a vast beast that looked like nothing so much as a vast amoeba made of tar came barreling towards the group. They would never be able to complete the teleport in time. Even as it approached, Usagi's eyes widened in fear.

 

Endymion stepped forward.

 

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

 

The helicopter descended on Mugen Gakuen from above, aiming directly for the star-shaped opening in its barrier field. For all that Uranus had joked about not knowing how to fly such a machine, she maneuvered it with supreme competence, moving easily down towards the barrier field.

 

That was when the Daimons that made up the barrier began their attack, sending out intense blasts of... themselves. Whips of viscous pink fluid surged upwards, flowing up and through the helicopter as if it were made of tissue paper, tearing huge gaping holes in it, tearing off the propellers and sending them flying down into the horde of monsters far below.

 

“Get ready,” Neptune said. She and Uranus unbuckled their seatbelts and scrambled back into the rear compartment.

 

The machine began to fall.

 

Pluto looked at Saturn. “Now, Saturn,” she said.

 

Saturn nodded, and raised the Silence Glaive in preparation.

 

The helicopter exploded.

 

-----------

 

An explosion thundered overhead, but they had no attention to spare for it. The Shoggoth was bearing down on them, and there was no way they could get out of the way in time.

 

“Sailor Moon, look out!” Mars cried.

 

The Senshi moved as if to jump clear and abandon their teleport, but at that moment, a rose went flying from Endymion's hand and struck the ground directly in front of the Shoggoth, embedding itself in the pavement.

 

The Senshi looked up.

 

“Endymion-sama!” Usagi called out excitedly.

 

He smiled at Usagi, and then turned and flung a volley of roses down all around the mighty beast. A moment later, a pillar of rose-red energy flew up into the air, each rose adding to the barrier field he had created around the creature: the Shoggoth roared its outrage. It wouldn't hold long, but the barrier just might be enough.

 

“Ima yo, Usako!” Endymion called, joining hands with the Venus and Mars.

 

Usagi nodded determinedly. “MOON COSMIC POWER!” she shouted.

 

The barrier flickered, flared, and then a dozen roses went flying in all directions. It would be on them in another second...

 

It was enough. “SAILOR TELEPORT!” they shouted as one. Power flared around them, surged up into the sky, and every one of them - Endymion included - vanished.

 

The Shoggoth smashed violently through the area they'd evacuated a split second later.

 

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

 

“Silence Wall revised: Silence Sphere!” The incantation was drowned out by the roar of the explosion, but audibility was not necessary: even as the helicopter erupted into flames, a large sphere of crackling purple energy snapped into being around Saturn, Pluto, Uranus, and Neptune. Fire roared around them - the heat of it was incredible - yet within the sphere, they fell completely protected, down, down through the wreckage, through the star-shaped opening in the Daimon-shield, each of them landing gracefully on the roof of Mugen Gakuen.

 

They had actually landed on the helipad. Only the seriousness of the situation and the knowledge that Akane was somewhere nearby prevented Saturn from laughing at the absurdity of that fact.

 

Nearby, a flight of metal stairs led down to the roof access door. Across the way, several antennas dotted up from the roof, and the edge of the roof was lined by a small steel ridge.

 

They had made it.

 

“Well done,” Pluto said. She glanced down at the raging sea of monsters all around the skyscraper, stretching out in all directions for as far as the eye could see. There. A surge of power. The Princess and her Senshi had successfully teleported within. “Saturn,” she said, her tone grave, “take care of the chaos spawn and then join us inside.”

 

Saturn nodded.

 

Even as Pluto, Uranus and Neptune raced down the stairwell and into the building through the roof access door, Sailor Saturn brandished her Silence Glaive and walked slowly to the edge of the building.

 

She felt... anticipation. She had never used this sort of power before, and the thought of it excited her even as it filled her with fear. The night was dark, and the light of the stars were obscured by the seething mass of Daimons that formed the building's shield. Even now they reached for her. They knew she wasn't one of them. They knew she didn't belong. She felt it gathering. Power, and with it, all her sorrow, all her anger, all her feelings of helplessness and regret. She channeled them all into the Silence Glaive.

 

Distantly, she could hear her father's voice: `A martial artist's duty is to defend the weak.'

 

They were out there, probably. Human survivors. People struggling to survive in the midst of all this death and horror. As a martial artist, it was her duty to defend them. But as Sailor Saturn, she had another, horrible, almost inconceivable duty. It weighed down on her like a stone around her neck, and in that moment, the weight of it nearly crushed her. Those people would not be alive for much longer, and compared to what awaited them if she didn't act, death was a mercy.

 

Yes, this was her duty. This was the burden she had accepted.

 

This was the price for saving Akane in the battle against Saffron.

 

“DEATH,” she intoned, and the whole world seemed to reverberate with the sound. “REBORN.” Power gathered around her. Tremendous, inconceivable, world-shattering power. All of it was there, in the palm of her hand. Darkness boiled around the Silence Glaive. Ribbons of darkness wrapped around its blade. Below, monsters of every description doing battle in the streets of Minato stopped and looked up, sensing the change in the air. “REVOLUTION!” she cried, and swept her blade down across the skyline.

 

Death had come to Minato. All across the world, humans and chaos-spawn alike stopped and stared in shock. All across the world, sound failed. Voices were stilled in mid-sentence by vocal chords suddenly unable to produce them. A sense of horror gripped the hearts of men; the Silence descended, even if only for a moment; a foretaste of the things to come. There came a bright flash of light, and then vast, roiling ribbons of pure death and destruction streaked down from the roof of Mugen Gakuen, ending the existence of everything they touched. The Daimon shield did not even slow it down: the whole great pink mass was visible for a split second like a photo-negative of itself, and then was simply gone. In total silence, the Minato Ward and everything within it save only the Mugen Gakuen building itself, ceased to exist.

 

Saturn lowered her Glaive, and she trembled. Below her, the whole ward, the WHOLE WARD had been reduced to a vast crater of cold glass.

 

And even for all that, all she had bought them was time. She had destroyed the forces occupying Minato, but the Old Ones had no lack of armies. Even now, she could sense them surging across the border between the rest of Tokyo and the glass crater that had once been Minato.

 

She turned away from the roof edge and walked down the stairwell into the building.

 

END CHAPTER 16