Sailor Moon Fan Fiction ❯ The Power Of Fire ❯ Chapter 18

Michiru and Haruka entered the lounge room at the same time as Usagi, Minako and Makoto.

"Two Setsuna's?!" Usagi's squeal startled everyone at the sheer intensity of it.

"I'm Pluto, not Setsuna," replied Pluto, "And you must be Princess Serenity. I've waited a long time to meet you."

"Ah, nice to meet you," replied Usagi, dumbfounded as Pluto bowed to her.

"This is Pluto, from about two millennia ago," stated Ami, obviously still trying to grasp the fact.

"You mean from the time of the Moon Kingdom?" asked Haruka, an eyebrow rising skywards.

"Yes, or at least I was, one year ago," replied Pluto calmly, seeming to enjoy the company.

"Saturn is coming, it will be nice to see her again," said Pluto, expectantly turning towards the door which indeed opened seconds later with a Saturn-transformed-Hotaru.

"Pluto, how're you old friend?" greeted Hotaru, still using the gruff, gravelly tones that didn't belong to the young girl.

"Not as old as you it seems," laughed Pluto, teasing the smaller Soldier.

"Explain yourself please," came Michiru's strict voice as she went to stand beside Setsuna, disapproval written all over her face, "Why have you come from the past?"

Pluto's eyes narrowed at Michiru, obviously sizing up the smaller girl, causing Haruka to stand beside her lover.

"I have come to set you free," replied Pluto cryptically.

"I have no time for riddles, a storm is coming. I want answers, now," said Michiru firmly, stepping forward to place herself between Pluto and Saturn.

"I have come to release your whole powers from the humans we bound them in so long ago. Of course not all of you have your complete memories back so I wanted to wait until it was all known, but if you really wish for the answers I know someone who could tell you better," Pluto spoke knowingly, a small smirk residing on her face as she pulled out a chair at the dining table and took a seat.

"Who can tell us then?" asked Haruka, coming to stand beside Michiru defiantly, grasping Michiru's hand in hers.

"Omoikane; she is after-all the Goddess of Wisdom," replied Pluto smartly, "But sadly, she is still in her weakened form at the moment. I guess you'll have to wait for the storm."

"We aren't waiting for anything," said Setsuna as she glared at Hotaru, "And we aren't going to resolve ourselves either, we're going into this to destroy them."

"They aren't like us, Setsuna, they're linked. Do you know how precarious a step it is to exterminate them? What happens if they choose to link themselves? Would you really break our law, even by accident, just to leave yourselves weakened and without your memories; your past?" Asked Pluto, clearly mystified at why Setsuna was being so defiant about it.

"You knew what it was all along, didn't you Setsuna?" asked Makoto suddenly, anger alight in her eyes.

"Yes, she did," replied Pluto, standing up again.

"How do you free Omoikane?" asked Ami suddenly, her skin on fire but she seemed to shiver as if in a current of coldness.

"You mean, how do one of you free Omoikane?" corrected Pluto, smiling at Ami, "You were so brave fighting it on your own Mercury, so brave to not share the secret."

Ami's face fell slightly at the words, "I didn't know what was happening…" Ami's voice trailed off, "I just felt wrong."

"You felt like something wasn't right inside of you. There's a hole there, and it can't be filled just by humanity, can it? You've already felt it, your true potential; an eternal potential," said Pluto proudly.

"Could somebody please explain everything?" asked Minako, looking bewildered.

"Like I said, Omoikane would do better to explain it," replied Pluto.

"But Omoikane isn't here," pointed out Rei,

"Isn't she?" questioned Pluto smartly, looking down at Omani-Kaye.

"She's confused still. She's connected to Kuriri too much," said Ami, taking everyone by surprise.

"Yes, the only way for her to tell you everything would be for her to be separated from Kuriri's body, but we must wait for the 'storm' before it can happen," replied Pluto, laughing at the word 'storm' of how Haruka and Michiru used to describe the forthcoming battle that they could all feel evolving around them.

"None of this is making sense. You obviously know how to free Omoikane so just tell us already!" exclaimed Rei, stepping in front of Ami.

"Yes, I know how to free her," replied Pluto.

"Then tell us," said Rei exasperated about the circular conversation they were having.

"You have to figure that out by yourself Mars," said Pluto as she turned, nodding to Saturn who followed her movements to the door, "We will be watching for you when they come but remember, no matter how powerful you are, you cannot attack them."

"You mean we shouldn't attack them?" asked Makoto, hesitantly reaching out, desperate for more information.

"No, you can't. Only Setsuna can destroy them, of course she would need to borrow all your power to do so, but all of you, civilian or Senshi, your attacks will be of no use against this enemy," stated Pluto, her voice showing no emotion as she left, closing the door behind her.

"Can anyone piece together any of that information for me?" asked Minako, looking around at all the baffled faces that stared back at her.

"It looks like we have a mission to complete," said Michiru determinedly.

"Can we eat first?" asked Usagi, looking sheepishly down at her feet.

 

~~~~~

 

Isaiah swore loudly. "I can't locate the others anywhere! We should not have let Omani-Kaye go!"

"Saturn would have destroyed us if we had not given her back," said Inamu, obviously bored with the conversation.

"Well now how are we going to know how to find the others?" asked Samson, pushing himself off the wall.

"We'll have to get Omani-Kaye back. We can't defeat them with only seven of us," said Furo-Ien, his fist pounding into the wall.

"But we'll have to have a plan," continued Isaiah.

"They'll come for us," stated Inamu, "It's how it has always been designed."

"So we were 'designed' just as playthings for them," hissed Samson angrily.

"No we were designed to protect this would no matter the cost, it's just we've reached our expiry date to them," replied Inamu rationally.

"They have no right to take it back!" Exclaimed Furo-Ien.

"You are all unreasonable males!" shot back Inamu.

"Alright!" yelled Isaiah, taking a look around the group, "So what is the plan then Inamu?"

"Simple, I don't know if any of you have forgotten but they can't attack us, none of their powers work against us, so we just take Omani-Kaye if she seems so important to you. I believe we should just wait, the others will reappear and alert us to their presence, it just involved patience is all," stated Inamu as she leant back into the cushions.

"I don't believe in patience," hissed Samson as Furo-Ien took his hand.

"I know, that's why we're going to do it your way. We'll draw them out, they should know by now that we're the ones causing the weather disturbances so we'll need to actually go outside for this to work. I'm sure some of them are a-tune enough to sense us, and they'll come. You three can hold them off and I'll go get Omani-Kaye while they're distracted, but remember not to injure them, otherwise you might weaken us too," Inamu nodded as she finished speaking.

"I don't like it. It has too much exposure," said Isaiah, his top lip curling at the thought of having to be outdoors.

"Exposure is what we need if we want them to find us, or don't you want Omani-Kaye back?" questioned Inamu.

"But what about the two that can attack us?" questioned Furo-Ien.

"Saturn and Pluto won't fight with them. From my knowledge Saturn can attack us, but she can't kill us. Pluto is the only one who can kill us and if they're really the same Soldiers, well I'm guessing there is still distance between them, so to speak," replied Inamu.

"Are you sure about this? It could be a trap," said Isaiah, clearly disliking the odds, it was going to be three against six and if they didn't transform into the Soldiers, they would have no real weapons at their disposal.

"Isaiah, we're the one's setting the trap, how could they possibly know what's going to happen?" laughed Samson, joyous about the chance to fight.

"Settle it Samson, it's still going to be hard. Being tied to them so obstinately means we also have to be very careful, some of them are already too aware, we don't want to awaken them even more," said Inamu, disgruntled by Samson's attitude.

"Fine, I'll be good," replied Samson slightly put-out.

"Okay, well you can start working boys I'm going to get some food," laughed Inamu, getting up and walking from the room leaving the three males glaring at her back.

 

~~~~~

 

"Setsuna, how much did you know?" asked Mamoru as he watched the sleeping forms of Usagi, Chibiusa, Minako, Makoto, Rei and Ami.

"I knew about the legend, I know some of the past, but not all of it," replied Setsuna truthfully, holding the coffee cup in both of her hands.

"Would you tell us everything you know, truthfully?" queried Mamoru, causing a sigh to escape Setsuna.

"I guess I don't really have a choice do I?" asked Setsuna back, a sad smile on her face.

"Not really, no," laughed back Mamoru, Michiru and Haruka sitting silently at the other end of the table, just in hearing distance.

"What do you want to know first?" asked Setsuna, resigning to the fact that she would have to tell them it all anyway.

"The legend, what's true and what's not true," stated Mamoru, looking readily at Setsuna.

Setsuna let out another sigh, "Okay, I'm going to tell you but you can't interrupt me. Now, take into account I don't know all of it, not all of the memories were restored to me," said Setsuna as she began.

"Understood," said Mamoru, nodding as he watched Setsuna.

"Okay," started Setsuna…

"The legend is true, all of it that we read in that book anyway. The Eight Guardians, as we were known back then came to earth one day after a huge solar flare from a neighbouring solar system wiped out life from every other planet in our solar system. Earth was the only one left with life so all Eight of us decided to help protect this world, trying to preserve the last piece of intelligent existent, aside from the moon of course, in our solar system.

"It was about five millennia ago we came. I'm not exactly sure where, but we landed somewhere in South America, it was the place we sensed the most life force from, and there we found great, ancient civilizations.

"We tried to fit in at first, trying to search for a way to protect the planet without leaving our posts of our planets, it was then a young Priestess told us of linking. She said that two humans could link their body energy to one another; she called it 'soul-splitting'. At first we discarded this idea; it was too dangerous, if we did indeed split our 'souls' or star-seeds as we know them, then our power would also be split equally. We searched for many years but we eventually came back to the village with the young Priestess, but by that time she had out-lived her life expectancy.

"There was only one other person in the village who would explain to us the 'soul-splitting', and old, rejected Priest who had been deemed unworthy by his fellow people. He explained that it had been a long time since anyone had tried the ritual and that we shouldn't look at it lightly. Not only would our past, relationships and emotions be shared, but also all parts of our life; our power; our eternal life.

"We decided to go ahead with it, leaving a piece of us behind was a small price for being away from our stations for so long. We then went in search of people who we thought could hold our power, but we didn't expect it to be so hard. Even in those times sins were highly abroad no matter how high the price but we each found a counterpart in the end. It took us three whole years to find them, and returning to the Priest he taught us the ritual. It was slow and painful, splitting a star seed is not an easy feat and it took a whole month, each minute of it causing horrid pain. When we were done we made the endowed humans swear never to harm another human with their power, to always protect their planet and to not reduce themselves to sin. It seems, though, that they broke all of these promises in time.

"We left, describing to the humans that if we were to die so would they. They seemed threatened by us at first but we assured them that six of us could not harm them, only Hotaru and I have the ability to attack them, and only I have the ability to kill them. It settled them and we explained that as long as we were around, they too would be eternal, forever being reincarnated in different powerful forms wherever the world needed them most. They agreed to this.

"I don't know how long it was before they became corrupted and abused what we had given them, but by that time Chaos had started to attack us again, though in a different, weakened form than the one that Galaxia fought. We grew weakened and we didn't notice the pull that was gradually sapping all our powers. It was around three millennia ago that something changed, I was no longer connected to the earth the way the others were, and Princess Serenity, who would grow to be the Queen of the Moon Kingdom, charged me with protection of the time and space continuum. I have only realised recently that the reason I was no longer connected was that they had most likely destroyed one of their own, but I was still unable to increase to my ultimate eternal form. That's as far and as much as I can remember. It's come back to me in pieces, and talking to the future Soldiers, or ex-Soldiers as they are now, reminded me of the whole thing…

Setsuna took a deep drink of her coffee as she finished.

"When you say eternal you mean like Sailor Moon Eternal?" asked Mamoru, not looking over at Michiru and Haruka to see how they had taken the information.

"Yes, to become Eternal again we would have to take back in the other halves of our star seeds but I believe we should destroy them. They have been corrupted and I believe that taking them back in would only re-create those monsters except in our bodies. We are weaker than them in our current form, after Queen Serenity re-incarnated us into this time it strung back some of our energy. You see while we didn't exist in the current reality for two thousand years, the fact that we were re-incarnated to this point kept our counterparts alive on this earth, and for them to survive in that time period they had to jump from human body to human body, culminating in creatures like Omani-Kaye. One body supporting two souls in it; so to keep them alive the counterparts had to take some of our energy through the reincarnation cycle, effectively making us weaker than them in this time," replied Setsuna, looking as though she were about to fall asleep,

"So that means we can't defeat them doesn't it? Not unless we destroy them," said Haruka decidedly, Mamoru and Setsuna looking over at the pair for the first time.