Life's Lessons
A Sailor Moon fanfic
By Kristin Renee Taylor



Chapter 20 -


Terri had been on a ladder when the explosion knocked her off. She struck the catwalk hard on her back, too dazed to be thankful she had only fallen a short distance.

The lights cut off.

Terri scrambled to her feet. One flailing hand caught a rail. She leaned against it, breathing hard and listening intently to the darkness.

Nothing. No noise from her headset. No sounds from the technicians that should have been around her. Not even the generator's incessant throbbing. If she didn't know better, she would have thought she had been transported somewhere else.

Tightening her grip, she muttered, "All right, Terri. Now what?"

Get back on the ground, that was what. Just because she didn't hear any Enforcers didn't mean they weren't coming. She had to get to a ladder and find Minako-

Something wrapped around her throat. She was hauled backwards, off her feet. Gasping, she grabbed whatever was strangling her, felt metal links slicing into her fingers. Just before she passed out, the chain vanished, leaving her panting for air.

She heard someone walk in front of her. "You are Terri Ganabile?" An incredulous snort. "You are nothing more than a child!"

The footsteps stopped in front of her. She sensed the blow coming, but was still too slow to dodge it. The kick landed on her chest, hard enough to throw her down the catwalk several meters, where she lay gasping weakly in the suddenly too thick air. Her ribs had been broken. Barely able to breathe, Terri curled around her pain, helpless to do anything as her attacker approached.

"I will not die like the others did. I will not be trapped in her mind, at her mercy."

Someone grabbed her by the neck and lifted her into the air. "To prevent that from happening, you will die."

Having an affinity for both metal and light really came in handy sometimes, like now when, in the absence of all light, her powers let her know exactly where she was going. The total darkness had slowed her down, but, the instant her eyes adjusted she headed upwards again, more sure-footed than any mountain goat.

Two things plagued Minako's mind as she vaulted from platform to platform. The first was the arrival of a Senshi, probably Venus, seconds after the lights had gone out. The second concerned Makoto; the explosion on the roof spawned all sorts of horrible images in Minako's mind, and the death of Minako's headset did nothing to make her feel better. But making sure Terri was okay was Minako's first responsibility. If something happened to Terri, everything was screwed.

Be okay, Mako-chan, because I can't afford to think about you right now.

A sudden glow from just above Minako drew her attention. She angled towards it. "Venus!"

The Senshi turned her head slowly. She smiled as Minako thumped onto the center of the catwalk. "Minako... I was beginning to wonder where you were."

Minako's eyes were immediately drawn to Terri, struggling in the Senshi's grip. "Let her go, Venus!"

"And why would I want to do that?" the Senshi asked. Venus' hand tightened and Terri gasped. Venus' smile became predatory. "I would have much more fun if I killed her now."

"I won't let You do that!" Minako said.

A sudden prickling at the base of her neck was all the warning Minako had. Her feet swept out from beneath her, and she fell on her back with a pained grunt.

With a casual downward sweep, Pluto swung the Garnet Orb at Minako's head, halting it a hand's span away from her face. The Senshi said coolly, "For once in your life, Aino Minako, be wise and stay down."

Venus roared. "Pluto! What do You think You are doing?"

"Fulfilling Serenity's orders," the Senshi of Time said with icy calm. "And those orders do not include the death of the girl. Hand her over, Venus. Now."

Venus tossed Terri to the walkway, where the girl lay, gasping and clutching her throat. Light bloomed, and Venus held a length of chain between Her hands. "Inner Senshi do not take orders from Outers."

"The order does not come from Me, but from the Queen Herself." Pluto shifted Her grip on Her staff. "Do You dare disobey the Queen?"

Venus glared balefully, but allowed the chain to dissipate. "Of course not," She said harshly. "But, I will be the one to deliver the girl to Our Queen."

Pluto shrugged marginally, showing that She didn't care. Minako gritted her teeth in frustration. If it wasn't for that damned orb hovering over her nose...

Venus threw Minako a look full of malice before vanishing, taking Terri with Her.

Pluto sighed. "Venus' one redeeming factor is that She is easy to manipulate." And then She, too, was gone.

Minako lay on her back and wondered just when this day had gone so horribly wrong.

Bodies lay everywhere.

Rei stared, speechless, at the corpses on the floor of the hallway. There had to be at least twenty, maybe more. Most were followers of the Inner Senshi, a few were Enforcers.

All of them had been beheaded.

The air reeked of blood and urine, overpowering the rank sewage smell that radiated from the small group. A couple of the Ku'dath were breathing through open muzzles. Stormcatcher's ears were flat back against his skull. "Much fighting."

"I can see that," Rei said, more sharply than she had intended. She nudged the two Priests in black with her foot. "These two still have their heads, so either they had just gotten here, or they're the ones that killed the others." She folded her arms. "I'm betting these two did it."

Trackless' brows rose. He looked at Stormcatcher. <Two humans can do this?!> The mental speech buzzed, an unpleasant drone in Rei's mind.

<The human thinks so.>

"I'm still in the room," Rei growled. Damn mutants and their irritating telepathy. They were standing in the same room; what was wrong with normal speech?

As if hearing her thoughts, Stormcatcher smiled at her, then his expression sobered. "This, I do not like."

"I don't either." She frowned. "I know the Inners and the Outers don't get along, but this seems extreme." She shook her head. "At any rate, we should get going. The main level's four stories up and Serenity's throne room should be just a few floors higher."

Stormcatcher looked at her. "'Should be?'"

"We're... actually not sure... where Serenity's throne room is. Or what she looks like." Rei said. "Everyone we sent to spy on her's been killed." She smiled thinly, "Hopefully, the same won't happen to us.

"Let's go."

The bird that wasn't a bird turned out to be much more than a robot when it dove, screeching, at her head. It exploded mid-flight, intense light had filled the sky, blinding her. There had been a sickening crunch that made her scream. Unconsciousness, when it came, had been a relief.

With a thick groan of pain, Kino Makoto returned to the world of the living. She hurt everywhere: head, arms, legs, there didn't seem to be a single point of her body that hadn't been tenderized. She couldn't feel her hands, someone had tied her wrists behind her back, cutting off the blood to her fingers. Coughing weakly, she opened her eyes.

Tile met her gaze, a floor full of white octagonal tiles stretched from wall to wall. She lay off to one side, near a wall who's color she couldn't see. Makoto stared, uncomprehendingly, at the crystalline walls, the green one in particular. Something about the room she lay in was important, enough so that warning sirens were going off inside of Makoto's head.

She'd been here before. Something told her she hadn't enjoyed her previous visit, either.

Boots entered her field of vision. Jupiter leaned over Makoto. "Did you sleep well?"

"Screw you," Makoto rasped.

Jupiter smirked. "As imaginative as ever." She straightened. "Yoko."

"Just a few more minutes, Excellency," came the immediate reply.

Jupiter nodded and turned away. "Good. The less time I spend bound to this human, the better."

Makoto gritted her teeth and forced herself to sit up and take a better look around. She was at the one point of a large, black octagon that had been drawn on the floor. Jupiter stood opposite of her, with her back to Makoto, staring at a birds-eye view of Crystal Tokyo and apparently oblivious to everyone else. Between the two of them paced a Priestess of Venus, muttering to herself in what sounded like Latin.

Makoto said to the Priestess, "You're Terri-chan's friend."

The Priestess glared at Makoto. "I don't have any friends."

"She's pretty worried about you."

"I bet she is," Yoko said dryly.

Makoto shrugged, using the movement to cover her testing the strength of the ropes that held her. They didn't feel too tight; ordinarily, Makoto wouldn't have had trouble snapping them, but she was still disoriented and weak. She'd have to time this perfectly if she was going to escape at all.

"Oh, she is," Makoto said lightly. "Her whole reason for coming back to Crystal Tokyo was to make sure you were okay." By rhythmically flexing and relaxing her arms, she loosened the knots enough to return circulation to her fingers.

Yoko stopped pacing and glared at Makoto. "You're lying!"

"I never lie." Was it Makoto's imagination or did Jupiter just twitch? "I am confused, though. I mean, why would Terri-chan care about such a stuck-up, selfish, self-centered, arrogant twit is beyond me."

"Why you-" Yoko whirled on Makoto, one hand dipping into the sleeve of the other. Makoto tensed.

"Yoko." Jupiter turned her head slightly. The Priestess froze, panic etched on her features before smoothing to blankness. Makoto forced herself to relax, and smiled innocently. "I'm sorry. Did I say something wrong?"

Yoko separated her hands, and almost visibly had to force them down to her sides. Turning, she bowed to Jupiter's back. "Everything is ready, Lady Jupiter."

Jupiter faced Yoko, favoring the Priestess with a false smile. Her gaze slid to include Makoto. "Well, it seems as if your time has finally expired."

"Oh, I don't know about that," Makoto said.

Yoko stalked forward. Crouching, she grated something that might've been Latin, and pressed two fingers against Makoto's forehead.

Heat blasted through Makoto's body, racing through her veins to focus on a single point on her forehead, and at that point someone slammed a spike of power straight through her skull, nailing her to the floor. And through it all, she remained awake, aware, and unable to move.

From a great distance, she heard Yoko speak. "Come forth! all ye that would witness this: the merging of Power and Powerless, the re-awakening of the Gift. I, Osaka Yoko, invoke the spell of Binding!"

Jupiter gasped, "What have you done?!" And Makoto watched the Senshi fall to her knees, one hand clutching her chest, body wracked with convulsions. Jupiter's body flickered, fading in and out.

Yoko laughed. "What's the matter, Jupiter? Not feeling like your usual, over-bearing self?" She glanced at Makoto and sneered. "Or, maybe you're feeling more like your old self, huh?"

Jupiter's eyes widened. "You fool! If you kill me, you will die as well!"

Yoko pulled a knife from the sleeve of her robe. She smiled maliciously. "But, I won't be killing you, will I?"

In sickening slow motion, Makoto watched, helpless, as Yoko brought the knife down.

The world exploded into a haze of red pain.

Fear.

It was not an emotion Jupiter was used to feeling, for not much scared a Senshi. Death itself, while tragic, was nothing more than a phase, a transition from the physical to the non-physical. So long as Makoto lived, Jupiter would exist in some way or another.

All that had changed as Makoto stiffened, let out a single, gurgled cry, and stopped moving, lying in a slowly spreading pool of red. In that instant, as Yoko stood, robe stained with blood, Jupiter knew Her life span had been reduced to a few desperate heartbeats and a handful of shuddering breaths. A disconcerting numbness had begun to spread out from the center of Her chest, and, in a short time, She wouldn't even feel that.

I will not allow it.

Fury welled, and with it came a semblance of the strength that was rapidly draining from Jupiter. She rose to Her feet, feeling ethereal hands plucking at Her body, tugging Her off-balance. If Makoto's death didn't kill Her, the spell Yoko had cast certainly would. Damned if She did...

Yoko saw Her rising, and sneered. "Well, well... Going to slit my throat now, Jupiter?"

"You have cut your own throat, Yoko," Jupiter said coldly. Ignoring the fact that the floor had begun to tilt at odd angles, She started forward, sparing Yoko the barest of glances. "The pathetic thing is that you are not even aware of what you have done."

Yoko's confidence wavered, before her face filled with contempt. "You're a sore loser, did you know that? A big, sore lo-"

"You are a fool, and I am done wasting time on you," Jupiter said irritably. The effort nearly undid Her, but She managed to lift Makoto into Her arms. She turned to Yoko. "All you have done is break the mirror." She smiled insincerely. "Congratulations."

Yoko opened her mouth, but a sudden, sharp crack silenced her. She turned, followed Jupiter's gaze. Behind her, the emerald wall had fractured, silver liquid seeped then poured into the room, coming faster as the wall gave way to the pressure.

Jupiter said, "Reap your reward, Heretic."

She had the satisfaction of seeing the woman scream in impotent fury, and then Jupiter teleported, leaving Yoko to her fate.

Rei stared at Stormcatcher in open astonishment. "They're all dead? All of them?"

"Not all. The black ones live," the Ku'dath said. He brandished his left arm, revealing a long gash. "And fight. But, not well." He smiled then, and Rei carefully avoided noticing that his muzzled was tinged red.

Rei shook her head. Everyone they had come across- be it Enforcer, Priest, or Priestess- had been dead. Rei had assumed that the slaughter had been restricted to the lower levels but now, six or seven floors above the main level, she was quickly beginning to realize that there wouldn't be anyone alive.

She massaged her temples while she muttered, "There's a simple explanation. I know it."

Stormcatcher snorted. "We won. That simple enough?"

Rei shook her head. She looked around the hallway they stood in. "I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the reason why all of the followers of the Inner Senshi are dead, why Pluto's people have been on a murdering spree, and-" Rei grimaced. And why the hells haven't I been able to contact the others? "This doesn't feel right."

Stormcatcher was staring at her. "You eat bad food?"

Gritting her teeth, Rei added another item to her mental list of reasons why she hated dealing with demi-humans. "No, I did not eat something bad, Stormcatcher. I-" A close-range teleport silenced her. She tilted her head, listening. "Did you hear that?"

"Did I hear what?" asked a voice that did not belong to a Ku'dath. Rei's head snapped around so fast she risked whiplash. "Minako-chan!"

"Yo." Minako waved jauntily as she approached Rei and Stormcatcher. She sounded cheerful enough, but the expression in her eyes told a different story. Rei frowned. "Where's Mako-chan and Terri-chan?"

"They're around here somewhere," Minako said. She met Rei's eyes and Rei suddenly heard <We need to talk. Now.>

Thankfully, Stormcatcher didn't see Rei flinch.

"What-" Rei begin. Minako hooked Rei's arm and dragged her away, all the while smiling disarmingly at Stormcatcher. "Stormcatcher, mi amigo, I'm gonna borrow Rei-chan for a few minutes, so you and all your pals can just keep doing whatever it is you're doing, mm'kay?"

"What is wrong with you?" Rei hissed.

Still smiling, Minako backed away, rambling so quickly that neither Rei or Stormcatcher could get a word in edgewise. But, her fingers dug into Rei's arm as she dragged the both of them around a corner and out of Stormcatcher's sight.

Immediately, Minako dropped her hand. Rei rubbed her arm, massaging circulation back into her hand. "Kami-sama, Minako-chan, what's going on? Where are the others and how in the name of every god there is did you learn telepathy?"

Minako stopped walking. Folding her arms, she leaned back against the wall and looked down at her feet. Rei's irritation gave way to a small knot of worry in her stomach. "Minako-chan? Minako-chan, what's wrong?"

Minako took a deep breath. "Rei-chan..."

Premonition slammed into Rei, and she doubled over, fighting for breath. An image appeared in her mind, a room. Acting on instant, she caught a startled Minako by the wrist, and teleported to the place she had seen.

The room was dark, thick, heavy drapes covered all of the windows. But it wasn't so dark that Rei couldn't make out the large bed or the crumpled shape on top of it. "Mako-chan!"

"Shit!" Minako spat as she and Rei ran to their friend. Rei's blood turned to ice, the hilt of a knife stood out clearly from Makoto's chest, surrounded by a spreading pool of blood. Her eyes were still open, they stared blindly at the ceiling.

Minako reached her first, pressed two fingers against Makoto's throat. She almost collapsed with relief. "Still alive." She turned her head slightly. "This was done recently, the knife's still hot."

A slight tremor ran through Makoto's body and Rei realized that Makoto was probably aware of what was happening around her. She lay a hand on Makoto's forehead and concentrated. "It's more than the knife wound. Something's been done to her magically." She turned to Minako. "We have to get her to Hotaru."

Staring at the knife hilt, Minako frowned, but said nothing.

Rei caught her shoulder. "Minako-chan!"

Minako blinked rapidly. "Wuh? Hotaru?" She straightened and backed away. "Yeah, take her there. Can you manage it?"

Rei nodded and, careful to avoid making the wound worse, she lifted Makoto. "Hang on, Mako-chan."

As soon as Rei was gone, Minako stalked over to the windows and ripped down the drapes. Light flooded the room, bright enough to sting Minako's eyes. She stared out and down at Crystal Tokyo, spread out beneath her. If she squinted, she could just make it a hint of darkness at the horizon. The Tokyo Tower.

"Would you have done it, Minako? Would you have actually let Makoto lie there and die just to get rid of Me? I know the thought crossed your mind when you realized I was here. I also know that this is not the first time you have had to make such a choice. I wonder if your companions know that."

Pain lanced up Minako's arms. She glanced down, saw that she was clenching her hands so tightly that her fingernails had broken skin. It was difficult, but she forced herself to relax.

"Thankfully for you and your conscious, it no longer matters if Makoto lives or not. That damn heretic's spell is still at work and, very shortly, I will be nothing more than a transformation phrase to that woman." A pause then, sarcastically, "That must make you very happy, doesn't it?"

Minako turned. "Believe me, Jupiter, nothing would make me happier than seeing you dead."

Jupiter lounged on the bed, Her back to one of the bedposts. She smiled. "Except, perhaps, seeing Venus die a cruel, agonizing death."

Minako's expression didn't change. "What does Serenity want with Terri-chan?"

Jupiter arched in eyebrow. "Her Majesty?" A shrug turned into a series of convulsions and Jupiter's body faded to the point where Minako could see the bed through Her. When the fit passed, and Jupiter was still there, Minako released a breath she didn't know she was holding. Jupiter muttered, "That, I do not know. Recently, the Queen has been spending much time by Herself, and has refused to see any of Us. However, a few hours ago, She spoke with Pluto, and, shortly after Their meeting, I felt Her leave the Palace."

Pluto, again. "Where did She go?"

"There are few places the Queen would bother to visit. My guess would be that She has gone to Australia. Our followers... or, rather, the Outers' followers, have been relocated there."

Some of Minako's anger slipped into surprise. "Then... You knew."

"That Pluto ordered My followers killed?" Pluto opened Her mouth, changed Her mind, and said instead, "Venus is supposed to be the one lying here, dying, not Me. I am supposed to have complete supremacy of Crystal Tokyo by now." She lifted Her hands, watched as they briefly flickered out of existence. She looked up at Minako. "Plans rarely work out they way they were intended to, do they?"

Minako spun away. "Only a god would think they would."

A bitter laugh gave way to silence. Finally, Jupiter said, "Search Mercury's labs. That is where-" When Jupiter didn't finish, Minako looked behind her, but she was the only one in the room.