Sailor Moon Fan Fiction ❯ Never Alone: a reimagining of Episode 111 ❯ Part Five: Closing of the Day ( Chapter 5 )

DISCLAIMER: Obviously, I don't own Sailor Moon or any of her companions. Also, as with "Not Without You," this is intended to use the names and situations from the North American dub, not the original Japanese. Thus, I have used the NA names, not the original names. So please don't get on my case for the use of the NA dub names - that was done deliberately.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I have taken some serious creative license because... because I felt like it! Sailor Antares is a character I've been trying to write for a very long time, and this was her debut in fiction. If I ever get back into this anime, I may actually finish the story I'd planned originally with Sailor Antares, but as it stands now, that's not likely to happen.

  NEVER ALONE:
A reimagining of episode 111 (North American dub)
by Joanne Calypso Blessing (sirbartonslady)
first published May 2002 PART FIVE: CLOSING OF THE DAY

Trista motioned the others to step back. "Give her some room. She released her Senshi spirit too quickly, it looks to me. Neptune?" She looked up at Michelle.

"Michelle Kaioh," Michelle corrected gently. Trista nodded in acknowledgment.

"How do you feel, Michelle?"

"Awful. Drained. Weak, but not like this!" she spared a frightened look at Amara, who remained unconscious where she'd crumpled to the floor.

"I see. If you will give me a moment. I must transform again. Perhaps I can lure back the Kaze and Mizu. You both let them go too quickly."

Trista stepped back, held up her henshin wand and transformed into Sailor Pluto in the blink of an eye.

"Now, to see if I can still reach Antares; she'd know more about these elusive spirits than I would."

For a moment, Pluto stood rooted to the ground, her long hair rippling with energy as Pluto raised her staff up and struck the floor sharply three times with the staff before she emitted the words:

"Cosmic Signal."

A magenta orb of energy jettisoned from her Staff and disappeared. For what seemed like an eternity, Sailor Pluto stood motionless, rooted like a statue. Then she looked alarmed;

"Everyone hit the ground! NOW!"

ASTRAL RECALL.

Not a moment too soon, because a blaze of fire zinged overhead, and Sailor Antares returned. She did not look pleased at being summoned back after such a short period of time. "And what seems to be the matter?"

"Uranus released the Kaze too quickly--"

"She will recover."

"Yes, I know--but she's been through far too much today. Please, how do I summon it back?"

"You cannot. Only she can. But if you insist her pain be alleviated, I can restore her temporarily. This does not mean it will not happen again if she powers down too quickly."

Antares glided over to Amara, reaching one glowing hand down to touch the very center of Amara's forehead.

Amara jerked, gasped wildly for air. She looked like she had just had the holy daylights scared out of her.

"What happened!"

"You passed out," Lita said gently, assisting Michelle in keeping Amara down. "You should rest, Amara. You've had a tough day."

"Yeah I'll say," Amara grumbled, leaning back against Michelle. "I could use a stiff drink of sake. And I don't even drink!"

Antares was glaring at Pluto; "I told you to summon me when you found your vessel for the Purity Force. Not for frivolities. I have a Galaxy to patrol now that I have been roused for my shift. I haven't the Time for trivial things. I'd have expected better manners out of you, Sailor Pluto. The Keeper of Time should know better than to meddle. Is it not bad enough you have forsaken your post?" Then, just as quickly as she'd arrived, Antares was gone. Pluto was blushing furiously. Abruptly, she powered down to become Trista Meiou again.

Michelle and Lita helped Amara get to her feet. Amara swayed drunkenly and groaned; "I think I must have already had that stiff drink of sake, because the room is swimming."

"Let's get you out of here, Amara, you need to rest," Darien said, trying to help Michelle and Lita with the clumsy, stumbling tower Amara had become in her delirium.

Amara awoke later--she had no idea how much later, everything went into a blur after they had, en masse, begun trudging out of the Cathedral. She didn't know how on earth they'd gotten home. Part of her didn't really care, either. Another part of her was curious.

She became aware of a cold, damp rag on her forehead.

"Her fever's going down," a voice said. Amara couldn't really move much, and didn't attempt to open her eyes. She knew that voice from her dreams and from what little she'd heard earlier. It was Trista. But the hands that tended her face, changing damp rags, had to belong to Michelle. She knew Michelle so well...

"That's good," Michelle said in response to Trista's observation that the fever was going down. "She's had a tough time of it, I see. Not used to such consequences."

Amara coughed, and groaned as her lungs protested. "Oh god... if I didn't know better, I'd think I'd caught some evil virus."

"Just the aftermath of your brush with death," Trista said soothingly. "You may remember you were asphyxiated. It's just an infection in reaction to that."

An infection caused by asphyxiation? Amara started to quiz Trista about it, but Trista simply averted her attention to something in her hands. It looked somewhat like Mercury's little blue hand-held computer... her head throbbed as she tried to sit up, and she gave up trying and laid back down.

"Gaugh," she groaned. "Lovely. I didn't mind the dying part, I guess. Giving your life for a cause is a noble thing. Getting a confounded infection and getting sick for a cause doesn't have the same ring, does it."

"No it doesn't," Michelle said, wiping Amara's brow tenderly. "Now you just rest. You're on the mend now."

"You know, you'd make a good mother, Michelle."

"With you around, I don't need children," Michelle teased lightly. "Now rest."