Name: The Winds of Fate part 2 Author: Black Gryphon rating: PG E-mail: blackgryphon21@hotmail.com ---------------------------------- The Winds of Fate: Part 2 by Black Gryphon Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters in this story, they are the property of the people at DIC and all other companies involved in the production and distribution of Sailor Moon. I don't own the song that's in here either, by the way, don't worry not many in this series have them. Because of the abrupt ending to production of the North American version of Sailor Moon I decided to take matters into my own hands and write a season of my own. This season is frozen in time between the final battle with the Doom Phantom and The opening of Season 4. For the most part, all the previous points apply. Comments are welcome, look at the end for my address. On a separate note, while I am very flattered by some of the fan mail, please note that I am a straight male, thank you. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Episode 2: A New player in the Game Lita walked back from the bathroom, her deep green dress folded neatly in her hand, she was still at Raye's home on the night she and Amy had their first dance. She was wearing an old pair of pajamas that her friend had loaned her for the night. All of the other girls were preparing their sleeping bags, with the obvious exception of Raye, who would sleep in her own bed tonight. As she passed a table she placed her dress on it and called over to her dark-haired friend, "All yours, Raye." She looked up at the sound of her name and grabbed a small bundle. Walking past her she said, "Thanks, I'll be right back." In front of her all of the girls were finishing up, Serena and Mina were planning to sleep in the clothes they wore to the dance. Amy on the other hand had had the sense to keep a dufelbag with street clothes to the school, and thus would sleep in them. The deep blue dress now sat beside the green one. Lita smiled as she saw that Amy had been nice enough to lay hers out as well; she walked up behind her girlfriend and gave her a hug from behind. "Thank you, but you know you're going to spoil me if you keep this up." She sad softly. Amy smiled and laid a hand on Lita's and replied, "Don't worry, you make up for it with your cooking." The two other girls were getting very red watching the exchange and as Amy started to turn to Lita she butted in, "a-HEM!" The two girls turned to their friend. "Guys, look. I know what its like, I feel the same way about Darien, but please find somewhere private, okay? It's like me coming in here in his arms, it would be really humiliating." As she finished both of them were quite embarrassed. Amy recovered first, "Sorry Serena, maybe a walk through the park tomorrow night, hmmm?" The last part was aimed at Lita. "Sounds good." Came her reply, a bit of a smile in the voice. A moment later Raye reemerged from the bathroom and started towards the others, but stopped when she heard something. "Did anyone else..." she began but Artemis cut in. "Sounded like scraping metal. What would make that?" He started carefully towards the door. "Relax Artemis, it's probably just someone visiting the temple, we get them all the time. Plus, they leave some odd offerings sometimes." She glanced back to the front of the temple. "We don't have anything out worth taking, but I'll go check anyway." She put on a formal robe on as she made her way to the door and slipped out, she emerged into the moonless night from behind the counter. As she looked around she couldn't see anyone, or anything, in the area. Carefully, she took a few more steps forward until she was brushing up against the counter; there, on the ground, was a sword, glinting dully in the almost non-existent light. "Hello?" She called to whoever might hear her. "Is anybody there?" When no answer came she hopped over the wood blocking her way and muttered, "Must have come just to leave this." She looked at the blade thoughtfully. *Odd offerings. I guess so.* She thought to herself. Shrugging off any further thought she reached down to pick it up... only to have a shimmering hand snatch the hilt away from her. She looked up and saw, as the moon broke from behind the clouds, a figure come into view less than a foot from her face! She realized that she was looking straight at Wise Man! Raye gasped in shock and jumped backwards, tripping herself on the counter and falling on her back behind it. She struggled to get to her feet, but her fearful movements kept her from getting them planted. Finally she heard a voice. "Are you all right, Miss?" The voice was filled with genuine concern such that Raye stopped being afraid instantly. "Miss?" The voice was coming closer. Raye quickly stood now that she was calm and found herself looking at a dark- cloaked figure, glancing at his hands she found that he was wearing black leather gloves that reflected to light he it caught it well enough. She couldn't she his face well under the hood, but she could she that he was a handsome young man, and that his eyes were human. "Are you all right?" He asked again. "Yes, yes, I'm fine. I didn't notice you there." She was embarrassed by her little display and it showed quite clearly. "I'm sorry about that, I was meditating and I'm a bit jumpy if I'm disturbed." He looked at the sword in his hand. "By the way, this was meant for you." He flipped the sword over and held the hilt towards her. Gingerly, she took the blade from him, "Thank you. Why are you here tonight anyway, especially dressed like that?" The question sounded stupid, but it was nagging on her mind. He laughed lightly and answered, "I'm always in this after dark, no one'll try and mug you if they can't see you," He paused and looked around, then to the sky "And I came here to find a calmness, its a beautiful place you have here." "Thanks again," She found that the sword was already getting heavy in her hands so she placed it on the counter. She offered her hand to shake, "Hi, I'm Raye, I live here." He took her hand and gently shook it, "And I am nothing more than a wanderer for tonight." He took a step away from her. "Have a nice evening, Raye." He bowed deeply with his fist over his heart and walked away. Raye watched as he left, as the moon again slipped behind the clouds he seemed to almost dematerialize until he was gone from sight. She kept looking the way he had gone for a minute, not entirely sure he was gone. Eventually she reached down to pick up the sword and realized that a scabbard lay beside it, she figured that this was the least odd of the recent events and picked both up. Raye slipped the sword into the leather and again heard the scraping sound. She reentered the temple and walked to her room. As she passed the threshold Serena looked up and asked, "Where'd you get that?" Raye hung the longsword on her wall and sat on her bed facing her friends, "Its a good thing you're all sitting down," She began sounding unsure, "'Cause this is going to sound weird." ********************** Long after the usual 'sleep-over chatter' was over and the girls and Artemis had fallen asleep, Luna awoke and slipped down off the chair she was occupying. She carefully slipped past Mina, jumped over Serena, and considered jumping over Amy before remembering how close Lita was. After some maneuvering she was finally able to reach Raye's bed, where, after a balancing act on the headboard, she jumped to the shelves nearby. After reaching the top shelf she took a rest and, panting, looked down on the girls and had to choke back laughter. The picture beneath her was adorable: Raye was sleeping with her arm over her eyes, making her look like a very amateur model; Lita had an arm over Amy and both girls were smiling in their sleep; and last, but certainly not least, were Serena and Mina, they had opened their sleeping bags and each had one of the others' feet cuddled up like a teddy bear. Luna shook her head and reminded herself of the task at hand, she readied herself for the next long jump. Taking a deep breath she jumped the two meter expanse to the next shelf and sighed in relief. After another moment she steeled herself and walked to the edge. The hook Raye had used to hang the blade was just past the end of the wood and she could easily see the hilt. Sighing in resignation she looked at the handle... and saw whet she had feared, worked into the metal of the hilt was a single word: Wyvern. Tears forming in her eyes, she bowed her head and whispered the words, "No, please God, it can't be." About an hour later she slid down the length of the sword to the ground and went back to her chair, but she knew she couldn't sleep anymore tonight. ********************** The following day found Raye awakening first. She yawned deeply and sat up in bed, after rubbing the sleep from her eyes she looked around. No one had moved since Luna had seen them and Raye smiled when she saw Lita and Amy; only to have to shove a pillow in her face to keep from waking everyone with her laughter when she saw the two blondes. Lita, however, heard the muffled chuckling and woke, "Wha...?" Came her sleep- laced response. Raye quickly got Lita's attention and put a finger over her lips to indict to her to be quiet. Lita, in turn, wiped the sleep from her eyes and smiled happily at Amy, who was still asleep next to her. Raye got out of bed and, grabbing a camera, started taking Polaroids of Serena and Mina. Before getting up, Raye had indicated to Lita to quietly wake up their local genius. The brunette grumbled slightly at having to disturb the blue-haired girl, but eventually gave in; deciding on the best way to easily wake her, Lita gently kissed her forehead. The effects were almost immediate, Amy came to full wakefulness smiling happily, but before she could say anything Lita gave her the 'quiet sign.' Amy raised an eyebrow to Lita and got an ignorant shrug in response. Raye finished taking her pictures and walked back to her bed; leaning down she whispered. "All right you love birds, you can look now." Both girls sat up looked over to the scene Raye had just finished with, though they tried, they both broke into uncontrollable laughter, Amy holding out a moment longer than the brunette. The blondes woke with a start, both of them trying to get to their feet, but shock making each hold onto the other's foot tighter, thus making a very embarrassing scene which caused Raye to start again. A minute later, after the each released the other's foot and they were sitting on their sleeping bags, they looked to their friends blushing a bright red. Amy was the first of the lot to recover enough to talk, though she broke into snippets of laughter here and there, "We're sorry guys, we just find that very cute." Raye came in at that point, holding up two of about twenty pictures, "And we have proof." Both of the girls groaned worried, "Oh, don't worry, I won't show them to anybody..." They both breathed a sigh of relief, until Raye finished, "Unless you get on my nerves, that is." Serena could only say one word, if you could call it that. "Eep." Was the worried reply. A silent tension grew in the room between the three girls, finally Lita found a way to break it. "I wonder if the school attack is on the news." She quickly crossed the room and switched on the radio. "...And so after a relatively short battle with the monster, the three of the scouts on the scene disappeared into the night with their friend Tuxedo Mask. Only one young man, named Melvin, was harmed, he had his energy drained and is recovering well in the hospital. On a lighter note, it turns out that the attack was during a 'coming out' of two young girls, one..." There was a pause and the man came back on with a very serious tone, "There is an attack at the mall, over twenty people have been drained of energy. Scouts, if you can hear this, we need your help!" They were already out the door. ********************** Upon arriving the scouts saw a very strange looking humanoid, it seemed to be in very plain, brown armor, but its body was constantly changing. As they approached, the monster drop two people it had been draining and formed two arms from under its original two. Relatively far off, Luna sat in front of Serena's TV, as the camera panned over to show the creature she began to shake. Old demons were resurfacing in her life and there was nothing she could do but she could do nothing but sit idly by. Tears filled her eyes again and she looked out the window to the sky and asked, "Why?" Back in the mall Mars was staring at the creature in shock, turning to the other scouts and asked. "Did my fire do ANYTHING!?" Sailor Moon was just as amazed, "I think it turned black for a moment." Mercury stepped forward, "Maybe I can slow it down, Mercury, Icestorm... Blast!" The ice clung to one of its outstretched arms for a moment before it pulled both the arm and the ice into its main body and formed a new one. "Anyone got a better idea?" Without any further waiting Venus gave it her best shot, "Venus, Love chain...Encircle!" The bladed chain shot out and quickly severed one of the longer, lower arms. As the limb fell it turned into a mucky substance, seeing their first signs of victory Venus shouted, "YES!" but, at about the knee a new limb came out and caught the former arm and pulled it back into the main body. "No." she corrected herself, disappointedly. The beast spoke for the first time then, its voice loud, yet distant; like that of a lost soul. "I was told that I would face a challenge when fighting you. What I have seen so far is pitiful." It doubled the length of its four arms and grew claws at the tips, when it was done it started coming forward again. Mercury noticed something and called Sailors Moon and Jupiter to her. "Did you notice that?" She asked the two scouts. "Notice what?" Sailor Moon had answered over her shoulder. "When its arms extended its torso got thinner, meaning it has a limited mass. Since nothing seems to effect its core, maybe you can use your more explosive powers to diminish its outer mass and make it more vulnerable." Mercury took a deep breath as she finished. Sailor Moon turned to her friend with a very confused face on, "Say what?" "Blow its arms off!" The other three scouts yelled as one. "Oh. All right then; Moon Scepter... Elimination!" Beside her Jupiter was also getting a shot off, "Jupiter, Thunderclap... Zap!" The ball of electricity caught the monster in one of its arms and exploded, shooting pieces all over the mall, and Sailor Moon's attack, with its larger area of effect, caught all three remaining as they tried to block the blast, sending even more pieces to join the others. The monster looked at its severed limbs and nodded slightly, "I suppose you are more impressive than I thought..." The earth started to shake, sending the scouts sprawling on the ground as the floor buckled and broke inward. The soil beneath the mall came up though the holes and made streams of earth which flowed into the beast and allowed him to make five more arms. "...But not by much." The monster shot one arm at each of the scouts and pinned them, by the throat, against the back wall. Energy began to visibly flow from them into the creature. The monster began to laugh horribly, its eerie voice making the scene seem to be from some long forgotten nightmare, suddenly it stopped and howled in pain, the energy drain stopped and all eyes turned to see a red rose protruding from one of the arms, then up to see Tuxedo Mask in an upper window. "How dare you harm so many inno... gack!" The negamonster had formed a new arm and held the man pinned similar to the Scouts. "I was warned about you as well." The monster laughed again and pushed the rose out. As it began the energy drain again, six small flashes of light came from seeming nowhere to sever the all the clutching limbs. All six of the heroes fell to their knees weak and gasping for air. "What! Who's there!?" "Why Brie'Og, don't you recognize the handiwork of my daggers? How about my voice." Said voice sounded normal enough, but its source seemed to shift constantly with no obvious form anywhere near the area it came from. Mars thought the voice sounded very familiar, but couldn't quite place it. "Still nothing I see, let me jog your memory: You took my arm and gave it back through unimaginable pain, you killed my father and many more of my family, you drove me as a slave for a year in my life." The voice grew very cold at this point. "And you always used the expression: 'How sharper than a serpent's tooth' when speaking about me." Brie'Og's eyes grew wide as he realized who he was speaking to. "You're supposed to be dead!" "Not just yet." As the words were finished as dark-cloaked figure dropped from the roof, Mars knew instantly where she had heard the voice; the young man at the temple the previous night. Still none of the man's face could be seen and the cloak's constant little motions gave him an essence similar to smoke on the wind. "And call me The Mystic now, for I am the last." "You know you can't hurt me." "I've learned a lot since we last met." He drew a sword from beneath the folds of his cloak, "Let's see if you can guess what I'm going to do." With waiting for a reply he ran toward the beast, countless claws and limbs shot out at the dark figure, he cut some down, but dodged most. At almost the exact instant that half of the distance had been crossed the sword was lost to The Mystic, yet he continued forward, jumping and twisting such that he resembled an epileptic kangaroo, he closed the gap between them. He landed solidly and took the last few feet in a shoulder-down charge. As he hit the monster pieces flew outward, the main body of the thing was knocked backwards by the sheer momentum. Brie'Og quickly caught the man's arms and clothes in his body as he reformed, looking down on his captive he laughed and said, "That was very stupid, boy." As he said the words his many arms folded in, wrapping around his main body and the dark figure. The Scouts, still too weak to move, watched in horror as he was pulled into the beast with a loud slurping noise as the last of him disappeared. Brie'Og turned back to the five girls, his size had doubled and they could see that its torso was shifting with the struggles of The Mystic. "I suggest you submit, any who don't will share his fate," It tapped its body for emphasis, "There are worse was to go, but not many." It formed a new arm and slowly extended it towards Sailor Moon, who was still watching the slowing motions of the creature's body. Sailor Moon tried to back away from the arm, but found that she was both too drained to move, even if she wasn't against the wall. The hand opened and slowed even more for effect as it neared her throat, but just as it was about to touch it spasmed and pulled back a foot. All the Scouts looked up to see the beasts eyes wide with fear, every few seconds it would spasm again, almost as if in pain. It pulled its arms in and held its chest, a moment later a huge spasm sent it to its knees. Its body started to lose its consistency and its face seemed to melt away, soon it was nothing but a twitching three meter high, brown blob, slowly draining away into the holes that had recently fed it. After about half of it was gone a solid form began to become visible in the muck, when it was another meter down the hooded head of The Mystic became liberated from the substance. As the last of it slipped away it seemed t pull all of itself off the figure. He stood there for a moment gasping for air and holding a dagger and a broken crystal, his clothes were stuck to him and even part of his midriff was exposed, shaking slightly the garments went back to their original places, renewing his dark persona. A ball of blue energy appeared in the air as it had for the Mantis creature, but this time the dark man held the crystal into it and about half of the energy flowed back to its original owners, the other half was lost through another gate. The Scouts returned to their feet and faced him. Sailor Moon spoke first, "Thank you, you said you're name was The Mystic, right?" A nod came as her response. "How did you kill that thing? It was immune to everything we did." "Lesson one:" He tossed the crystal to the leader of the Scouts, "Know your enemy. That was Brie'Og, an Earth Construct... you go for the heart." He pointed to the crystal and sheathed the dagger beneath his cloak, "He killed my father, now, I've avenged him." He spoke without any emotion whatsoever. Without another word he went about pulling the six daggers out of the floor, then he went over, picked up his sword, saluted them with it and walked away. The Scouts stood there blinking for a minute before leaving themselves. ************************* In Serena's room Luna was crying openly, when The Mystic's stomach had been exposed she'd seen something over the TV that she dreaded, a scar, about the size of a man's wallet, shaped as an inverted 'Z'. She knew that she'd have to hide when Serena returned, but that was for later. As she wept she continually breathed the words, "I'm so sorry." She knew that the one for whom she spoke couldn't hear her, but it was all she could do. ************************* Back at his home the Mystic pulled off his cloak and dark clothes and slipped into some comfortable clothes. He opened a drawer and pulled out a strange carving, ten slots forming a sword, three were filled with pieces of metal. He went back to the cloak and found what he was looking for, a small amulet that Brie'Og had on him, he'd hidden it from the Scouts in his cloak. He took it back over to the carving and slipped it into a slot, the entire board glowed for a moment, he'd completed the hilt. "And so, it continues on. I am the last, I will be the victor." He said calmly. He put the board back in the drawer and left the room. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks for reading. Again, I don't know when the sequels will come, but I'm working on it. Comments are welcome. I can be found at blackgryphon21@hotmail.com