Ranma's attempts to discover more of the secret workings of the
mysterious key result in his witnessing a moment in history; or rather, the
last moments of Illianka, last Warden to wield the key.  He glimpsed a
great cataclysm approaching her ship, and the bond between the strange
girl and her last guardians, a woman named Griffon and a man who, it
turned out, was the enigmatic being known to Ranma as Dragon.
     As the night wore on and Baniesti drew nearer, everyone sought
solace and comfort in their own ways.  Rei, Minako and Usagi enjoyed
each other's company, Makoto watched over an injured Yoshi, Mamoru
met with his partner Yu and ETF Sgt. Meaghan Piakesti, and Setsuna
worried that Hotaru's darkness was rising one more.
     Ami's attempts to decode the discs retrieved from the Tyrian
Sultana's residence met with no success, at least until Rei showed up.
The synergy that had been created between Ami's Aethyr abilities and
Rei's Shadow magicks allowed Ami to see the underlying patterns in the
magicked encryption ... but only if she and Rei called up the synergy
through intimate means.  Their passionate encounter brought the two
girls closer, and also showed Ami the truth about the encryption: It was
based on work she had done for the villainous Inme.  And she suspected
the appearance of this particular glyph system lent credence to the idea
that there were forces at work beyond mere coincidence.
     Gathering the others, the group quickly found that the discs
contained incriminating evidence against the Sisterhood, including proof
that they had kidnapped a High Priestess of Alieva.  Setting off to the
mansion on the discs, the senshi, Ranma, Tux, and Yoshi found a hidden
passage into the city's treacherous underground labyrinth, and set off in
hot pursuit of the Sisterhood, determined to prevent them from
unwittingly doing the vampire's bidding.
     The Nightmistress led six of her Sisters and Maidens though the
tunnels, using stealth and trickery to lay a trap and separate the group.
Now Tux and Moon unwittingly pursue a fake Saekianna, while Ranma,
V and Mars fight monsters in one tunnel, with Jupiter, Mercury, and
Yoshi facing death on a rope bridge over a black gorge.
     And all the while, the vampire's plan comes closer to fruition ...
 
 
 
 

     This story is a work of fanfiction.  As such, it owes a great
debt to the creators of the characters used herein: Rumiko
Takahashi, creator of Ranma, and Naoko Takeuchi, creator of
Sailor Moon.

     This story contains scenes of a dark nature and Lime
rated material, and thus is not suited for younger readers.
Reader discretion is advised.
 
 

On A Clear Day You Can See Forever

Chapter 19: Down Town
 

     Luna took in the scene before her, wondering how upset Rei
would be if something unfortunate were to happen to Phobos and
Deimos.  Cats and birds, after all, did not mix well.
     "You two?" she spat.  "You scared us out of our wits!"
     "That right, Artie?" Deimos asked insouciantly.  She was standing on
the prone man's chest, hand on her hip as she gazed down into his face.
Phobos was still hovering in the doorway to the room where Rei had
spent the night, and to Luna it looked as though the winged girl was
trying not to smile.
     "You startled me," he muttered sheepishly, pale cheeks flushed.
"That's all."
     "That's NOT all!" Deimos shot back, stamping one tiny booted
foot.  Luna scowled as the sliver of the girl's stiletto heel dimpled the
front of Artemis's shirt.  "Where is Rei-sama?"
     "We woke up and couldn't sense her," Phobos added, sounding as
though that was Artemis's fault.  Luna shook her head, coal-black curls
bouncing around her face as she strode forward and grabbed Artemis by
the hand, pulling her sprawled partner to a sitting position.  Deimos,
rudely dislodged, spread her black wings and fluttered into the air,
spitting a string of very inventive curses.
     "The girls got a lead on the Sisterhood," Luna sniffed, ignoring
Deimos's outburst.  "They ended up following them underground, and
we've been out of contact since."
     "Underground?  That's dangerous!" Phobos blurted.
     "And without us!" Deimos added, clearly offended.
     "You two were still out when they left," Artemis said as Luna
helped him up.  She didn't see why he bothered to mollify the trouble-
making twins; she and Artemis were quite used to being left out of things.
     "She's done quite well all this time," Luna told the two hovering girls,
crossing her arms.  "I'm certain Rei will manage somehow."
     "Well, I'm certainly not just going to sit here and wait," Phobos
fumed, her delicate features set in a stubborn scowl.
     "Yeah, only a simp would do that!" Deimos added.
     "What?"
     "Um, maybe I should let you two out the back door," Artemis
said, quickly stepping between Luna and the irate twins.  She heard him
giving quick directions to the house where the senshi had gone, then the
sound of the door opening and closing.  When he came back, she had
calmed down.  A little.
     "Feisty little gals, huh?" he asked weakly. "Oh, come on, Luna
..."
     "I want to go."
     "Er, what?"
     "Go," she repeated firmly.  "Out.  There."
     "You want to follow them?  But ..."
     "I want to be in the thick of things," she told him, grabbing his
hand and holding it.  "Like old times.  We don't need to stay here to
coordinate things, Artemis.  We can do that from the field."
     "Well, yeah," he said slowly.  She knew she wouldn't have to try
very hard to convince him.  Artemis had always loved being in the
middle of everything, even more than she.  "But we don't know where to
go."
     "We'll start with that house," she told him, already heading down
the hallway.  That old excitement was coming back, a tingle in the pit of
her stomach that she hadn't even realised she had missed.  "If they come
up anywhere near it, we'll be able to reach them quicker if we're there."
     There was only so much the two of them could do, but Luna
would be damned if she would sit at home and wait for her princess and
all the girls.  If there was anything she could do, she wanted to do it.
     No more waiting around.

***

     The years had been unkind to this place, but the physical rot was far
from the worst of it.  A bleak taint hung thick in the air, a greasy psychic
residue of grief and despair and, underneath it all, madness.
     Pluto grimaced as her boots stirred up a noxious fog of mouldy
carpet and dust.  It was clear that no one had been in this house for a very
long time, and ordinarily that would have made her suspicious.  After all,
no other houses in this neighbourhood had escaped the predations of the
desperate, the drug-addled, and the just plain mad denizens of this
abandoned wasteland.  At the very least, the place should have been
vandalised and shown signs of occupation.  No tragic history should
have sufficed to keep the mouldering wreck unmolested.
     And no tragic history was.  No, Pluto understood exactly why the
old Tomoe house had remained sacrosanct.  There was something here, a
foul aura left by the vampire's act and the ensuing madness that had
ruined this place.  Even the most desperate of people, driven to the
furthest reaches of degradation and despair, could sense it.  And even
they wanted nothing of such a place, although Pluto doubted they were
consciously aware of why they avoided it.
     Saturn had been right.  This was, quite simply, a bad place.
     "Empty," Neptune opined, circling around through an open
sitting area.  The wallpaper was dark, stained with mildew and other, less
easily identifiable signs of decay, and it was peeling off the walls in
places.  Most of the furniture was gone, probably sold off by Hotaru after
her father's death.  All that remained was desolation.
     And faint, pulsing madness.
     "Here," Uranus said, her low voice carrying in the thick, sour air.
Pluto and Neptune joined her in a doorway near the front of the house.
Saturn, Pluto noted, hung back.
     The room Uranus was staring into was large, with dark wooden
beams running across the room just below ceiling level.  The dim,
gloomy light that ventured warily inside through the chinks in the
boarded-up bay window showed that this room was as barren as all the
others on this floor.  There was something of interest here, though, and
Pluto understood why Saturn did not want to look.
     There, still tied around the middle of one of the beams.  The rope
hung down a few inches, the end frayed.  Apparently, the police or
paramedics or whoever had cut Hotaru's father's body down had left this
little souvenir behind, and no one had ever removed it.
     "The vamp isn't here," Uranus said softly, so that Saturn couldn't
hear.  Privately, Pluto agreed.  Vampires were vain creatures, given to
surrounding themselves with decadence and beauty in order to feed all
their appetites.  Only the newest, most feral vampire would be forced to
live in squalor like this, and their quarry was far from freshly turned.
     "We'll check upstairs anyway," Neptune added.  Pluto only
nodded, watching as the two climbed the creaking stairs, mindful of the
possibility of structural failure.
     "I should have burned this place to the ground."  Pluto started a
little at the sound of Saturn's voice, low and toneless.
     "I'm surprised that you didn't," Pluto confessed, turning.
     "She wouldn't be upstairs, you know."
     "She's probably not here at all."  But Saturn was right, the vamp
would not be resting above ground.  Far safer to shelter where the sun's
rays could not reach.
     "I'm going to check the basement."
     "You don't have to, Saturn.  I'll go ..."
     "No!"  Saturn froze, and Pluto fancied that she could see the
woman taking hold of her emotions, reining them in tightly.  "No.  I will
handle this, Pluto.  You wait here."
     Saturn was a strong woman, a commanding presence, someone
who always seemed to be in control.  Pluto knew that very few people
were privileged to know this woman as she did.  For all her strength and
apparent aloofness, there were times when the vulnerable girl that had
once been Hotaru Tomoe could be seen, even through the layers of
emotional armour and psychic scarring.  When that happened, Pluto
could not help but want to reach out to her friend, to try to protect her.
And even though Hotaru had always made a show of disdaining help,
there was no doubt in Pluto's mind that her friend ached for the gentle
touch of compassion.  She might not be able to admit it, but Saturn
wanted to be cared for, cared about.
     "I understand," Pluto told her, choosing her words carefully.  "You
need to face your demons, Saturn.  But you don't need to do it alone."
     "I don't want you down there."  Saturn's tone was commanding,
but deep inside those violet eyes a scared young girl clung to her sole
defence, a brittle facade of cold arrogance.
     "Do you really think," Pluto asked gently, "that I don't know
what we'll find?"
     Saturn didn't reply, but some of the tension went out of the set of
her slender shoulders.    It would be a relief, Pluto reflected, for those
shoulders not to have to bear so much weight alone.
     "I don't want you to see it," the woman said at last, softly,
dropping her gaze so that she would not have to look Pluto in the eye.
     "You are not going down alone," Pluto repeated, reaching out to
place her hand on Saturn's shoulder.  "If for no other reason than the
outside chance that our vamp could really be down there.  Saturn."  She
squeezed the shoulder, smiling gently.  "Hotaru.  I've seen you at your
darkest, remember?  I've seen you fight your demons, and win every
time.  All that's down there is ancient history.  It doesn't change anything.
It doesn't change you, and it won't change how I see you.  I promise."
     "Very well."  Saturn took a deep breath, let it out slowly, tension
thrumming through her lithe frame.  Her gaze locked with Pluto's once
more, and she seemed resolved, at least.  "Let's get this over with."
     They had a surprise waiting for them, however, when they made
their way back through the house to the hall where the basement door
was.  The door stood open, and there were fresh tracks in the dust.
Tracks that had come down the narrow back staircase, tracks that had
been made by boots.
     I should have known, Pluto thought ruefully.  Saturn's eyes
widened, then narrowed, and Pluto wondered if there was going to be an
explosion of their leader's famous temper.  For her part, Pluto could only
wonder how Neptune and Uranus had moved through the decrepit house
so silently.
     "I see nobody trusts my judgement," Saturn gritted.
     "That's not it," Pluto assured her, pushing the door wide.
     "Hey," Uranus's voice came from below as her foot hit the first stair.
"I think the two of you need to see this."
     Pluto could tell from Uranus's tone that this would not be pleasant.
 Steeling herself for the worst, she followed Saturn down the stairs.  The
basement was a stark affair, bare concrete walls and floor with bare bulbs
for light.  The bulbs were dark, of course.  No power here, not for a very
long time.  But there was more than ample light to see by, and Pluto
paused at the bottom of the stairs, grip tightening on her keystaff.
     Candles.  Hundreds of them, casting an incongruously warm
glow over the slabs of bare concrete.  Their flickering flames picked out
tiny points of silver on the large cage that had been bolted to the floor,
and Pluto's heart twinged as her gaze swept across the manacles that
hung from strong chains near the back of the cage.  They were the right
size to fit a young girl's slender wrists, those cruel things.
     She'd known that Hotaru's father had imprisoned her when the
bloodlust had come, but the thought of her friend chained up and locked
in a cage in this cold, dank place, that hurt with an intensity that was
physical.  Saturn had not wanted any of them to see this.
     In truth, Pluto could scarcely blame her.  But the past was, it
seemed, the least of their worries.
     "The candles lit when we came down," Neptune told them.
     "A simple spell," Uranus shrugged.  "Saturn ..."
     The slender woman did not reply, only staring fixedly at a spot on the
floor near the back wall.  There was something lying there, and it took
Pluto a moment to puzzle out what the small, lumpy shape was.  Then
recognition hit, and her stomach curdled at the shocking cruelty that must
lay behind such a gesture.  The cat was small, only a kitten really, its fur
standing up in rough tufts all over its fragile body.  Its eyes were partially
open and glazed; it had not been dead for more than a few days.
     It was black and white.  Had Hotaru's first cat been black and
white?  She thought it probably had.  And had this tiny, stiff corpse been
drained of what little blood it contained?  Pluto would have bet on it.
     Not that she had to.  There was something else, taped to the wall
behind the forlorn remains.  A brittle-looking piece of newsprint hung
there, a greeting card of some sort beneath it, a discordant splash of
colour and forced cheer in this dark place.  Pluto moved closer, noting
the careful way that the other two watched Saturn.
     The newsprint was an obituary.  She did not need to see the name
in bold type at the top of the page; the picture of a slender, dark-eyed
beauty told her whose death the notice had heralded.  Yukari Tomoe had
indeed been a beautiful woman.  The card beneath the death notice,
though, was an even crueller counterpoint to the reminder of a life taken
too soon.
     CONGRATULATIONS! the card exhorted over a cartoonish picture
of bright pink balloons.  IT'S A GIRL!
     Saturn's cry of rage split the air seconds before a cacophony of
metal on metal.  Pluto could only watch as her friend demolished the
solidly built cage with sharp, vicious swings of her glaive.  The din was
deafening, but that hardly mattered.  She had no words for Saturn,
nothing to salve the horrible memories that had been dredged up and
rubbed into still-raw wounds.  She winced as Saturn easily demolished
the last remaining wall of that stern prison, sending neatly halved steel
pipes flying across the basement with the fury of her swing.
     "Saturn," Uranus said as the clattering of steel died away.
Pluto's ears still rang with it, and she wondered at first if Saturn simply
couldn't hear them.  "SATURN."
     "Laughing," Saturn spat, her slender shoulders trembling with fury.
She spun, and Pluto saw the pain and rage in those violet eyes, a look
that reflected old scars reopened.  "She's laughing at me.  All this,
everything, my whole life, my mother, it was just ... just a GAME!"
     Oh, hells.  Darkness was never very far beneath the surface for
Hotaru Tomoe, Pluto knew.  Could something like this call forth her
vampiric nature?  Was that what this creature had been counting on?
     "Saturn," Uranus repeated.  She took a step towards the enraged
woman, then another, speaking in a low, soothing tone, as one would to a
wounded animal.  "Listen.  Look at me."
     "I'll kill her," Saturn whispered, her normally pale face flushed.
"With my bare hands."
     "This vamp wants you rattled," Uranus went on, holding her
hands out to the sides.  "She wants you pissed, so that you'll be reckless.
Don't give her what she wants."
     Saturn's shoulders heaved as she tried to control her breathing,
and her hand still shook where it gripped the shaft of her glaive, but
Uranus had gotten her attention.
     "Hotaru," Pluto said softly.  "Listen.  You are not what she tried
to make you.  You have fought to be more, fought your entire life.  Don't
let her blind you to that."
     "She's trying to drag you down," Neptune added, stepping up.
"But we're not going to let that happen."
     "You need to stay focussed," Uranus said, looking down into
Saturn's smouldering eyes.  "So we can find this vampire and destroy
her.  Before she does any more harm.  Before she ruins any more lives."
     Saturn turned away, and Pluto held her breath, hoping that they
had gotten through to her.  After a long, tense moment, she stalked over
to the stairs, simmering fury lending her a predatory grace that was as
beautiful as it was unsettling.
     "Come on," Saturn said curtly, not looking back.  "There's nothing to
help us here."
     They watched her disappear up the stairs, and as one began to
breathe again.
     "It's one thing to know," Pluto sighed at last, surveying the stark,
cold basement.  "But to see it ... and that creature.  She unearthed
Hotaru's past, just to hurt her.  Such cruelty."
     "It's worse than that," Uranus said, running her fingers through
her icy pale blonde hair.  "The cat.  She knows at least some of Hotaru's
past."
     "She's been back to the city," Neptune nodded.  "Checking up on
her experiment?"
     "That's a chilling thought," Pluto muttered.  "Clearly, she's still
interested in Hotaru."
     "We have to keep her from finding out that Hotaru is a senshi,"
Uranus said.
     "It's far simpler than that, love," Neptune murmured, casting a
look back at the tiny ball of fur on the floor.  "We have to find this bitch,
and we have to kill her.  Quickly."

***

     "I'm beginning to understand," I panted, "why people avoid
going underground."
     "You know," V said hoarsely, leaning over with her hands braced
just above her knees as she gasped for breath, "that last one ... I think ...
he liked you."
     "The one with the sticky tongue?" I grimaced.  "He was trying to
eat me."
     "I think we're clear," Mars announced, leaning heavily on the
stone archway as she peered back down the latest corridor we'd sprinted
through on our Underground Saeni Spring Tour.  Her hair hung down
around her face as she bent over, and she combed it back with her fingers,
shaking it out as she stood.  She and V made it look easy, fighting and
running and whatnot with hair down to their knees, but I was glad that I
wore mine in a braid.  I'd just find it too distracting.
     I watched V take her cap off and shake her blonde tresses out,
too, and realised that I was distracted anyway, just by their hair instead of
mine.  They were like some sort of action/adventure shampoo
commercial.  It took me a while to realise that V knew I was watching
her and was just preening for my benefit.  I looked away quickly,
blushing.  I wasn't sure why, though, as I listened to her giggles drift
through the air like soap bubbles.  It wasn't like she minded me
watching.
     And, if I was honest, it wasn't like I minded, either.  Problem was, I
just couldn't seem to be honest about this stuff.  I wondered if there was a
way to learn.  Because Rei had been right; I needed to start thinking
about what I was going to do.
     But not now.  Things had been hairy for a few minutes there, but
we'd fought our way through Captain Tongue and his friends, and it
didn't look like they were following us anymore.  Still, we had things to
do, things that took precedence over my problems dealing with women.
Hot, sexy, flirtatious women with a penchant for scandalously sinful
clothing and even more daring behaviour ...
     I shook my head, appalled at myself for losing focus so easily.
Maybe V could juggle sex into every situation, no matter how dire, but I
needed to get my head in the game.  That ambush back there had nearly
taken us by surprise, and we couldn't let that happen again.
     "Okay," V said, tying a loose knot in her hair and perching her
cap back on her head.  "So, we're not going to be eaten in the next few
minutes.  But we're just as lost as we were before.  So, sportsfans, what
now?"
     "I want to try something," Mars said, pushing off the wall.  We
were in a fairly wide chamber, a sort of intersection of tunnels.  Two of
the four doorways had been sealed up with bricks, leaving only the one
we'd entered by and the archway opposite.  We could probably break
through the sealed doors, of course, but I wasn't anxious to do that.  After
all, they'd probably been sealed for a reason.
     "What, here?" V asked as Mars walked to the middle of the
round stone chamber.
     "Our choices aren't exactly unlimited," Mars replied, dark eyes
flicking over to V, then to me, deep and filled with unknowable secrets.
     Unknowable? something deep inside mocked me.  Maybe not, if
you only ask ...
     "This isn't the best place," I said, mostly to take my mind off this
latest flood of hormone-induced heat.  "Two entrances to watch."
     "Time is our enemy, Ranma.  We can't afford to wait until a
perfect opportunity presents itself."
     "So, what's the plan?" V asked.  Her tone was that deliberately
casual drawl that meant she was ready and willing to try anything.
     "Communication," Mars said simply.  "We need to let the others
know about the temple and the Sisterhood's plan.  I've tried to contact
Phobos and Deimos, but I'm not getting anything.  Either they're still
recovering, or this underground interference affects our link as well as
our comms."
     "So, what?  You're going to yell really, really loud?" V grinned.
     "No, I'm going to summon my shadow, and I'm going to try and
forge a link to Mercury."
     Silence.  Yeah, Mars had done that once before, true.  But every
time she did the spooky shadow thing, people seemed to get creeped out.
Well, okay, I got creeped out.  But V didn't seem entirely happy, either.
     "Could that work?" V asked, sounding a little wary.
     "It worked once before."
     "Yeah, but your powers were boosted by being in Shadow,
right?"
     "Presumably," Mars admitted, meeting V's gaze evenly.  "But
having done this once, the link may be easier a second time."
     There was no reason for me to think that she was lying about this.
Hell, magick wasn't my thing, really.  But somehow, I thought Mars
wasn't being totally honest, and it struck me again how I was coming to
know these girls well enough to sense things like this.
     "Well, it's worth a try, I guess," V shrugged.  I was sure that V
sensed what I did, but she didn't seem suspicious or anything.  Which
made sense; she trusted Mars.  And I did, too.  Whatever she was hiding,
it was nothing sinister.  Was it?  Hell, I wanted to trust her.  The way
she'd come to me last night, taking the time to talk to me about those
things, that had really changed my view of her.  I'd thought she was a
little stuck-up and cool before, but now I found myself liking her.  She
was different from V, sure, less flamboyant, just sort of self-possessed.
All things considered, she was pretty cool.
     Of course, that little voice piped up, maybe that's why she had
that little talk with you.  She was a Sister, she knows how to get people to
like her, to be on her side ...
     I clamped down on that thought.  Hard.  I watched her talking to
V, asking for more light, and as that tawny golden glow crept over her
face I had a flash of insight.  One of the things that kept Rei at arm's
length from other people was almost certainly that insidious little doubt.
Everyone knew what she'd been now.  Did they ever wonder, just for a
moment, if she was manipulating them?  Even if they didn't really believe
it, they probably did wonder, even if just in passing, as I just had.  And
she knew it.  Hell, maybe she wondered sometimes herself.  That sort of
thing would always be there, ready to poison any relationship.
     Of course, there were also people who managed to find ways to
constantly show their affection for her.  I watched V size up her friend,
smiled in spite of myself as the blonde leaned in to whisper something in
Mars' ear, letting her hand linger on the girl's shoulder.  Maybe that was
why those two were such good friends.  They were so different, but they
really did complement each other.  I'd heard the whole opposites attract
thing all my life, but I'd never really believed it. Maybe there was
something to it, after all.
     V and I stood back-to-back, keeping an eye on the two entrances
to our little sanctuary as Mars started her chant.  Even though I'd seen it
before, I still felt that little surge of disquiet as her shadow started to
move, slinking around her feet before slithering up onto her skin.  I didn't
think I'd ever get used to something like that, and I found myself
wondering how it felt.  Was it cold and damp, like something dreadful
and otherworldly?  Or did it feel natural, like a part of her?
     Both V and I were catching the show while watching our
respective doorways, and neither of us spoke as the shadow came to its
mistress obediently.  Mars raised her chin, letting her head fall back
slowly, and her hair flowed as if caught in a light breeze.  My eyes kept
trying to follow the flow of inky tendrils as they slid like black mercury
into the deep cleavage of her dress, and I had to force myself to look
away.  Now was not the time to get distracted.
     Even if she was very distracting.
     V bumped my butt with hers, and I just knew she was grinning.
"Quite a show, huh?  I wonder what it would look like if she was
naked?"
     "Geez, would you focus?" I grumbled.  Great, that was a mental
image that wasn't doing anything to help my already wandering eyes.
     "Oh, I am focussed," V purred.
     "I meant on the door."
     "I'm multi-tasking," V shot back.  "Some sights just should not
be missed."
     Well, she had a point there.  My eyes crept back to Mars,
standing absolutely still, hands palm-out at her sides.  The shadowy
tendrils were still winding languorously over her pale skin, but there was
something else now, a faint glimmering within the shadows that I seemed
to catch from the corner of my eye, even when I was looking directly at
it.
     Something was happening.

***

     Jupiter's world spun crazily as she tried to breathe.  Body-
slamming solid stone was bad enough at the best of times, but at least if
there was light you could brace for the impact.  She clawed blindly for
purchase with her free hand; if her arm hadn't been caught in the coils of
the rope bridge, she would have been jarred loose by the impact and
fallen for certain.  As it was, the hot pain in her arm made it hard to tell if
she was slipping.
     Finally, Jupiter managed to wedge the fingers of her free hand
into the rope where it was biting into her trapped arm.  Doing so made
the pain spike, sending hot slivers into her shoulder, and she bit her lip to
keep from crying out.  Flailing with her feet, the battered senshi managed
to stop herself from twisting at the end of the rope, and each breath she
managed to drag in was deeper than the one before.
     She took stock of her situation.  It was hard to tell how far she'd
fallen, but she wasn't going anywhere for the moment.  Of course, there
was no way of telling how secure this rope was up at the top.  It could be
fraying even now, waiting to plunge her to her death.  Her trapped arm
was on fire; if she was lucky, the shoulder was only dislocated.  Climbing
out of here with one good arm was going to be interesting.
     Mercury.  And Yoshi.  She hadn't heard any screaming.  She
didn't want to consider the possibility that one or both of them had failed
to make it across before the bridge had collapsed.  She swallowed, trying
to slow the triphammer pounding of her heart, trying to find enough
breath to call out to them.
     And if no one answers? her inner voice asked.  What then?  What
if you're all alone?
     She tried to pull herself up with her good arm.  She made a little
progress, but the jagged slashes of hot agony in her other arm robbed her
of strength, and she was forced to lower herself back down.  Damn.  If
she couldn't get her trapped arm free, then it wouldn't matter that she
hadn't fallen.  She'd be stuck here.
     Gritting her teeth, she told herself to ignore it all, the pain, the
gnawing worry about her friends, all of it.  Just get up there, she intoned
silently.  Take care of the rest later, but first things first.  Get your ass out
of this mess.
     Her boots skidded along the rough stone, searching for footholds
to help boost her up.  Pieces of the bridge were still attached to the rope
she was clinging to, and she brushed at them as they swung past her in
the dark, girding herself.
     Mercury and Yoshi are okay, she told herself.  But they may be
hurt.  They need you.  And the others do, too.  And the princess.  She's
out there with the Sisterhood.  You're not leaving her alone, girl.  You
don't get to hang here and whine about how tough it is.  You are one of
HER senshi, and you are not finished until you know she is safe.
     Now MOVE.
     She moved.
     Oddly, when the weight came off her injured arm it hurt even
more.  Jupiter bit her lip again, in the same place as it turned out.  The
taste of blood was unpleasant, but not nearly as much as the pain
screaming through her arm and shoulder.  Wedging her boots into small
cracks and irregularities in the stone, she raised herself up even more,
finally prying her arm free of the tangled remnant of the rope bridge.
     A small gasp of pain escaped the prison of her gritted teeth as the
arm flopped down to her side, and tiny specks of multicoloured light
floated around in her eyes, but Jupiter held on tight until the pain passed,
taking a sudden wave of nausea with it.  Now, all she had to do was
figure out how to climb an unknown distance in the dark with one hand.
     Piece of cake.
     She wound the rope around her forearm once, gripping it tightly.
Then she moved her feet up, found a higher purchase, and boosted herself
up a few inches.  Once her knees had straightened, she loosened her grip
enough to slide her hand quickly up the rope.  Then she repeated the
process.
     And again.
     And again.
     A few inches at a time.  At this rate, she thought grimly, it'll take
me a week to get to the top.  And I don't have that kind of time.  None of
us do.
     "MAKOTO!"
     She froze, her heart leaping straight up into the bottom of her
throat.  Yoshi!  His voice had come from above, and as she craned her
head back she could see faint light above her.
     "Jupiter!  JUPITER!"  And Mercury, too!  She tried to answer,
but it took her a few tries to draw a deep breath.
     "HERE!" she shouted at last.  There was a moment of silence
while she hung there, relief nearly overwhelming the pain in her arm.
Nearly.
     "I SEE YOU!" Mercury's voice came at last, echoing hollowly.
"HANG ON TIGHT AND WE'LL PULL YOU UP!"
     Now that's a plan, Jupiter thought, nearly giddy with delight.
Beats all the hells out of climbing three inches at a time, anyhow.
     She kept her feet braced against the wall, and when the rope
started to move, she walked upwards.  She could feel the strain in her
legs, but the pace remained slow enough that she had no trouble keeping
up.  Her arm sent shards of pain shooting through her body every time
she moved it or bumped it, which was far more often than she would
have liked, but there was that whole thing about beggars and choosers.
     The light at the top was brighter the next time she looked, and she
could see the edge of the cliff.  Told you, she thought with almost
childish satisfaction.  The movies never lie.  Those damned rope bridges
always, ALWAYS, fall.  Even if they sometimes need a little help ...
     The rope jerked, then she was sliding back down the wall.  She
cried out, trying to dig her boots into the unyielding stone, only to be
yanked to a stop just as she thought she might plunge all the way down.
The sudden stop made her lose her footing, and her body swung into the
wall, jarring her bad arm.  The pain was instant and searing, the intensity
making her head swim and her stomach churn.  For a moment, she
thought she might pass out or at the very least lose her grip on the rope.
She spun for long moments at the end of that coarse lifeline, her arm
abraded above her glove where the rope looped around it.
     Finally she managed to force the pain back, scrambling wildly
with her feet until she managed to get them braced against the wall.  Her
shoulder burned, her lungs ached, and her head felt like there was a
blender inside of it set to puree.
     But she was still here.
     "Makoto!  Are you okay?"
     It took her a few tries to find her voice.  "You probably shouldn't
do that again," she managed to croak.  Her voice wasn't very loud, but
Yoshi's keen hearing apparently was up to the task, because he replied
immediately.
     "Sorry!" he called.  "It's Mercury!  Something's happened to her!  I'm
not sure how to explain this ..."
     "Pull me up," Jupiter gritted, her mouth dry.  "Quickly."
     "We should go slow!" Yoshi argued.  "You could ..."
     "Yoshi, gods, just get me up there!"  Mercury was in trouble.
She needed to be up there.  After a moment, she heard Yoshi's reply.
     "Okay.  You hold on tight, now."
     She could have kissed him in that moment.  Okay, she could have
kissed him in most moments, but the fact that he'd decided to trust her
judgement rather than argue meant a lot to her.  When they got out of
this, she'd see to it that he found out just how much.
     The rope began moving more quickly than before.  Yoshi was
obviously giving it everything he had, and she stumbled once or twice as
she tried to keep up.  But she didn't ask him to slow down.  Jupiter
gripped the rope with all her strength and ignored the pain in her arm, the
fatigue in her legs, and the way her vision was blurring.  She needed to
get to the top and, by all the gods, she was not going to stop until she got
there.
     A golden glow limned the top edge of the cliff, and as she got
closer she could see Yoshi's hands reeling in the rope, then his leanly
muscled arms, and she closed her eyes and willed her own muscles to
work.  Moments later those big, strong hands were grasping her wrist and
pulling her to safety.  She wanted to collapse against him, to lie spent
with her head against Yoshi's chest and listen to the thudding of his heart
as his scent surrounded her and his arms cradled her.
     But she couldn't.  Gasping, she pushed at his chest with her good
hand, looking around wildly, not noticing the details.
     "Mercury," she whispered frantically.  "What ... where is she?"
     "Right there," Yoshi said softly, holding her back.  "But I don't
think you should touch her."
     "What happened?"  Jupiter tried to break free, but Yoshi
restrained her, gentle but firm.  Mercury was sitting not far away, her
back to the wall next to a broken door.  Golden light spilled over her, and
Jupiter squinted, trying to see if her friend was hurt.
     "One minute everything was fine," Yoshi told her.  "The next she
stopped pulling.  Her knees just buckled.  I tried to catch her, but when I
touched her ..."
     "What?" Jupiter asked, alarmed.  Mercury wasn't moving, just
staring into space, her eyes unfocused, lips parted.  "Yoshi, tell me!"
     "It was weird," Yoshi murmured, helping her to stand and move
closer to the stricken senshi.  "Just before she fell, I caught a scent, real
strong.  Your friend, Mars.  And when I touched Mercury ..."
     "It felt like liquid sex on your skin," Jupiter breathed.  Mercury
wet her lips slowly, and Jupiter felt an unreasoning anger build behind
her eyes, pushing back the pain from her arm and the comforting heat of
Yoshi's bare chest.
     "Yeah," Yoshi admitted.  "I've never seen anything like this
before."
     "I have," Jupiter gritted.  In the light from the doorway, she could
see her friend's shadow writhing on the stone floor despite the fact that
Mercury wasn't moving.  Within it, odd patterns seemed to glimmer.
     Then the shadow moved up onto Mercury's skin.

***

     ami?
     I'm here, rei.
     are you okay?  it felt like you were panicking.
     your timing was a little bad.  gods, this feels so good!
     we strengthened the bond last night, I think.
     is that what they're calling it now?
                    <giggle>
     rei, did you just giggle?
     of course not.  I don't giggle, ami.
     you did ... oh, gods, it's so hot.  I want ...
     ami, focus.  control it.  we're in trouble here.
     sorry.  yes.  uuuhm ... yes.  sorry.  are you alone?
     no.  ranma and minako are with me.
     makoto and yoshi are here.  a little banged up, but we're good for
the moment ...
     listen, I think the sisterhood is planning to attack alieva's temple
from somewhere in these tunnels ...
     !!
     what was that?  ami?
     tunnels!  rei, do that again!
     do what?
     when you thought of tunnels, I saw ... I felt ... yes!  that!
     I don't understand, ami.  what is it?
     tunnels!  you've seen a diagram, a schematic ...
     yes ... wait.  you can see that?
     a glimpse, a ... do it again.  try to think of them ... oh, that's good.
     ami.
     sorry.  it's stronger than ever, it's like you're touching me
everywhere.  aren't you ...?
     I feel it too, sweetness.  I'm just better at control.  the tunnels?
     that's good.  mmmmm, good ... oh.  oh, my.  rei, I think I might
be able to cross reference this with the recordings I've been making.  we
might have been in one of these sections.
     you can do that?
     not just another pretty face.
     no, you aren't.
     ohhhhhhhhhh, GODS.  that was ... if you do that again, I swear
I'm going to ... you know.  okay.  can you give me any reference points
from where you are?
     forget us, ami.  stopping the sisterhood is the priority.
     okay, but it would be better if we could hook up.  you know them
best.  and it might help me correlate things.
     um. junction g-15 red?  that's all I've got ... ami!  that's
depraved!
     gods!  you saw that?
     saw, sensed ... and filed away for future reference.
     you wouldn't ...
     I would.  and I'd be damned good at it, too.
     we have to stop talking about this, or I WILL lose it.  can you,
uh, call me back?  in, say, ten minutes?
     shouldn't be a problem.  ami?  be careful.
     you, too, rei.

***

     Mercury blinked, focussing on the concerned faces of the two
people in front of her.  She took a breath, trying to fight down the last
remnants of her link with Mars.  Gods, it was so sweet!  How could Mars
control sensations like this?  How did she not drown in the sweetness?
     Then she blinked again as memory rushed in, pushing the intoxicating
fire away from her raw nerve endings.  "Jupiter!  Oh, I'm so sorry!  It
came on suddenly, and I ... I couldn't hang on to the rope!"
     "I know," Jupiter said, giving her a wan version of her usual grin.
"I'm just glad you're okay."
     "But you're hurt!"  Mercury climbed to her feet, calling up her
visor and checking Jupiter's arm.  Her scans showed that the shoulder
was dislocated all right, with some damage to the surrounding muscle.
It must hurt like all the hells.
     "We should pop it back in," Jupiter said when Mercury informed
her.
     "That'll be very painful," Mercury said, aghast.
     "She's right," Yoshi said.  "The sooner, the better.  Waiting's the
worst part."  He wrapped his arms around Jupiter from behind, holding
her tightly against him, and the ghost of desire slid across Mercury's skin
like liquid silk as she watched the two stand together.  She shook it off,
though, and held up her hand as she reached down and tore a strip off the
bottom of the t-shirt that Jupiter still wore over her tattered uniform.  She
carefully folded the cloth into a thick pad, then gave it to Jupiter and told
her to bite down.
     Yoshi did it quickly, but Mercury thought she heard the faint
grinding of bone on bone before Jupiter's muffled cry drowned it out.
Then Yoshi's strong arms were supporting the green-eyed senshi as
Mercury quickly scanned the shoulder again.
     "Perfect," she said, watching with sympathy as Jupiter spit out
the makeshift gag, gasping heavily.  Enlisting the aid of Yoshi's claws,
Mercury removed the bow from the back of her own fuku and fashioned
it into a makeshift sling.
     "Good as new," Jupiter told her as the smaller girl put the
finishing touches on the sling.  Mercury looked up into those deep green
eyes and let her fingers linger on the edge of the sling.
     "Don't push yourself, okay?" Mercury said softly.  "That must
still hurt."
     "I'll be fine," Jupiter assured her, and was very nearly
convincing.
     "So, what happened?" Yoshi asked, standing close behind
Jupiter.  His concern for her seemed to have driven his own troubles from
his mind.
     "Those rotten little farknuts ..."
     "Froptins."
     "Whatever.  They drove us out onto the bridge, then they chewed
through the ropes!"
     "What?"  Mercury was flabbergasted.  "Do you know what this
means?"
     "They're off my Winter Solstice card list, for starters," Jupiter
scowled.  Yoshi grinned, and even Mercury was cheered by the return of
her friend's characteristic irascible humour.
     "They acted together," Mercury corrected.  "There is a theory
that harrigurs, a distant cousin of the froptin, can form collectives.  Like
some insects in a hive.  They have a queen, and share a link much as ..."
     "We interrupt this broadcast of 'Wonders of Nature' to bring
you a news flash," Jupiter intoned.  "Who cares?  They tried to kill us!"
     "They would have, if you hadn't warned us," Yoshi told her,
squeezing her good shoulder gently.  "I was going so fast in the dark that
I barrelled right through that door.  Good thing the wood was rotted."
     "So," Jupiter said.  "Now we know that the movies speak the
truth on the perils of rope bridges.  How about you tell us what the
shadow has to say?"  Mercury nodded, summoning her visor again.
     "All right," she said.  "But let me work while we talk.  I may
have a way out of here."

***

     "You really think she can do that?" V asked as we walked.  The
tunnel was becoming darker, with those handy glowing stones getting to
be fewer and fewer.  Soon, one of the girls was going to have to start
providing light again.
     "She seems to think so," Mars said.  "And knowing Mercury, I
wouldn't bet against it."
     "Mars, I don't like this.  Magickal synergy is tricky at the best of
times.  Just ask Jupiter."
     "Jupiter can do this kind of thing, too?" I asked.
     "She's talking about the reaction between Jupiter's lightning and
Banri," Mars told me.  "A chaotic and uncontrolled synergistic reaction,
to be sure."
     "Synergies are always chaotic," V argued.  "And unpredictable.
But usually something goes boom."
     "Not this time."
     "No, Mars, this time you and Mercury are getting inside each
others' heads.  She saw your memory of the tunnel schematics, saw it
clearly enough to try and match it to her records.  That doesn't scare
you?"
     "V, anything new can be frightening.  And you know I wouldn't
take this risk if it weren't necessary."
     "I know you wouldn't risk Mercury if it weren't necessary," V
grumbled.  "You'd take a lot more risks if it was just you."
     "So we're heading towards her?" I asked.  I really wasn't
following the whole synergy thing, except that it meant we might have a
shot of getting out of this maze.
     "No way to tell," Mars admitted.  "But this was the only safe
route to follow, and I don't want to stay in one place too long."
     "We mostly went down from where the Sisterhood ambushed
us," I mused.  "We might not be too far from where we started, you
know."
     "Yeah, but we have no idea where that place is from here," V
said, brushing at a stray lock of hair with her gloved fingers.  "Damn it,
I'd feel better if we could contact the princess."
     "We'll find her," Mars assured her.  "And we'll put a stop to the
Sisterhood's plan.  All in a day's work, right, girls?"
     "Uh, not a girl," I pointed out.
     "Ah, yes," she murmured, giving me a lingering look that swept
up and down my body.  "I keep ... forgetting."
     That would have freaked me out, once.  I could still remember
how traumatic it had been back then, finding myself in a girl's body.  Ha.
Traumatic.  If this curse had been the most traumatic thing to happen to
me, I'd have gotten off lucky.  Nothing like losing everything in your life
to give a guy a little perspective.
     "She means you're hot," V said helpfully.  "That's H-A-W-T,
baby."
     "I couldn't have put it better," Mars sighed.  "Okay, it's been
about ten minutes.  I'm going to try again."
     We stopped under one of the glowing stones.  The light was pale,
but apparently more than enough for our purposes.  That made me
wonder.  How much light did Mars need, anyway?  I mean, if there was
no light, then we didn't cast shadows, right?  Or did magickal shadows
follow their own rules?
     Well, it didn't matter, because we had light, and Mars had no
trouble doing her thing.  We watched her sit there in the middle of the
tunnel while we kept watch.  She didn't stir, but the air around her
seemed to hum with a sound just below the threshold of hearing.  That
hum resonated pleasantly in the pit of my belly and ... other places.  I
couldn't imagine what it would feel like to be in the middle of it, but
Mars showed no sign of the effects.
     "Think this'll work?" I asked V softly.
     "Damn straight," she said without hesitation.  "Ranma, one thing
you'll learn about us.  We always find a way to make it work.  Always.
Between us, we can lick any problem."
     "The Sisterhood knows we've found their tunnel," I replied after
a moment.  "If they're smart, they'll assume the worst and be waiting for
us to hit their set-up."
     "They're smart," Mars said, opening her eyes.  I watched with
undisguised fascination as her shadow flowed back down her skin, finally
pooling on the stone beneath her where it belonged.  "They won't make it
easy for us, but we have the advantage now that they can't hide.  They'll
have to try and defend their position."
     "Mercury has a way out?"
     "She thinks so.  Junction G-15 Red was on the drawing.  She
thinks she knows where we are, and how to get up into the level we were
originally in."
     "Wait a minute.  How come you didn't say anything about old G-
15 when we were there?"
     "I didn't remember it," Mars shrugged, taking V's hand and
pulling herself up.  "I spent a few months studying those plans, but there
were a lot of them, with a lot of cryptic notations."
     "So Mercury not only picks these images out of your memory,
she sees them so clearly that she sees things you don't even consciously
remember?"
     "Apparently," Mars said.  V stared into her friend's eyes for a
long moment while I watched.
     "That's a pretty close link," V said at last.
     "Point taken," Mars replied, her voice soft as she gently retrieved
her hand.  "But we use all tools at our disposal, right?  Do I second guess
you when you're breaking into safes?"
     "As I recall, yes," V pointed out.
     "One time," Mars said with a slow smile, filled with sultry heat and
clearly intended to distract from the matter at hand.  "V, you of all people
shouldn't be lecturing anyone on being reckless.  And anyway, now is
not the time.  We need to hurry.  There are still hours until nightfall, but
the more time the Sisterhood has to prepare, the harder this will be."
     "So lead on."  V motioned gracefully, and Mars set off down the
tunnel in the direction we'd come.
     "We need to go through one of those bricked up arches," Mars
told us as we broke into an easy run.  "Hopefully, the passage beyond
will be accessible."
     "What about Mercury and her group?" I asked.  "Could she
figure out where they were?"
     "Not for certain," Mars replied.  "They crossed a bridge that
wasn't on any of the drawings.  But they did find an area with electrical
power.  They're going to follow the lights, see if they can find where it
feeds from."
     "Better than nothing," V said.
     Yeah.  Better than nothing.  But even if those lights led
somewhere, time was a-wasting.  And with every tick of the clock, I
couldn't help feeling that we were getting closer and closer to disaster.
     And I'd been through enough of those to last me a lifetime.

***

     "Ventilation shaft?" Yoshi mused.
     "Or drainage," Mercury shrugged.  "At any rate, the wiring goes
up through there."
     "But not us," Jupiter sighed.  "That shaft is way too small."
     "And far too long," Mercury added.  "We wouldn't be able to widen
it.  It'd take forever."
     "Where do you suppose the wires go?" Yoshi asked.  "All the
way to the surface?"  Mercury glanced at him.  A glance was as much as
she could manage; Yoshi was quite beautiful, his long blond hair falling
in disarray over the sculpted lines of his broad shoulders.  Maybe it was
the aftereffects of her link with Mars, but just the sight of the handsome
werewolf, naked to the waist, made her want to walk over and run her
hands over the rippled muscle of his abs.  Distracting didn't begin to
cover it.
     So she concentrated on more mundane matters.  "I don't think
so," she said.  "But maybe to one of the lower subway systems.  They
could tap into one of the power substations there."
     "None of these lights are burned out," Jupiter said, looking back
the way they'd come.  "Someone must have been down here maintaining
things, right?"
     "So how do they get here?" Yoshi went on, nodding.
     "Well, this wall looks to be a dead end," Mercury said, calling up
her visor.  That infernal interference seemed to have lessened somewhat,
but her tactical abilities were still severely compromised.  She hadn't
forgotten that Saekianna had somehow gotten close to them while she
was supposed to be keeping watch.  That failure galled her.
     But her fortunes, it seemed, had turned.  "Wait.  I think there's another
tunnel beyond this wall.  There may be a hidden door of some kind.  Help
me search, guys."
     In the end, Mercury's visor revealed a suspicious area on the
stone wall which proved to be the trigger.  The entire section of wall
swung out easily, and they stepped into the new tunnel.
     "Secret passageways," Jupiter said, shaking her head as they
surveyed the new tunnel.  "How very 'Castle of Professor Horror.'"
     "Makoto," Yoshi sighed, "you watch too many damned movies."
     "Yosh, when I'm transformed, call me Jupiter, okay?  It really
helps with the secret identity thing.  And at least I didn't say it was very
'Invasion of the Face-Eaters'.  Because even I have standards."
     "Good to know."  Mercury watched with a pang of jealousy as
the two bantered easily.  She was certain that Jupiter was working hard to
keep Yoshi from thinking about what had happened just before the
Sisterhood had attacked.  The werewolf's concern over Jupiter's injuries
had clearly overshadowed his own self-loathing, at least for the moment.
Still, they were good together.  What right did the Sisterhood have to
jeopardise something so precious with their schemes, anyway?
     "So, which way do we go now?" Jupiter asked, wincing as she
moved her injured shoulder while peering around them.  They were on a
kind of stone landing, one tunnel sloping up from one side and down
at the opposite end, with a third extending off opposite the hidden door
they had just passed through.
     "I'm not sure," Mercury admitted.  "I have no reference points to
use.  I think down is out, though."
     "Wait," Yoshi said.  A strange tension thrummed through his
body, and Mercury watched with fascination as he prowled the flat stone
landing with feral grace, muscle sliding easily under his taut skin.
     "I could watch him all day, too," Jupiter whispered in her ear.
Mercury jumped.  She hadn't realised she'd been so obviously entranced,
and she blushed furiously.
     "You've got to stop being so shy, Mercury," Jupiter teased.
Mercury said nothing, only wondered what her friend would say if she
knew about the searing hot passionate encounter she'd shared with Rei
the previous night.  That thought made her flush again, and Jupiter
chuckled.
     "I'm working on it," Mercury told her primly.  That made Jupiter
laugh, and Mercury felt a twinge of guilt.  She was keeping secrets, after
all.  But that guilt didn't last.  Most days it seemed that all the others
were giving free rein to their passions, and she was quite certain that none
of them felt guilty about it.
     "Scents," Yoshi said, his voice a low, throaty rumble that made
Mercury shiver deliciously.  "Familiar."
     "What?" Jupiter asked, all business now.  "Where?"
     "Follow me."  And he was gone, running full-tilt up the slope of
the tunnel.  Jupiter cursed.
     "Damn it, Yosh!  Wait!"  But he was gone, and Jupiter started to
run after him, only to grimace as the motion jostled her injured arm.
     "Careful!" Mercury cried.  "You'll ..."
     "Go after him!"
     "No!  Jupiter, I'm not leaving you alone!"
     "Damn it, he's not done beating himself up over what happened!
If he catches any of those women, I'm not sure he'll be able to hold
himself back!"
     That was trouble.  Usagi had made a promise, after all, and no
matter how vile their tactics, Mercury had to believe that Yoshi would
regret it if he killed one of them.
     Regret would do no good, however, if he couldn't control
himself.
     "Wait!" Mercury exclaimed.  "I can scan up to the top of this
tunnel.  He's stopped, and he's alone."
     "Come on, let's get up there!"  Gritting her teeth, Jupiter broke
into a jog.  Mercury wanted to do something to help, but Jupiter was
stubborn.  And tough.  And if it had been her lover, Mercury wouldn't
have listened to reason, either.
     She followed.
     A surprise awaited them as they reached the top of the slope,
however, a somewhat familiar tableau.
     "Hey," Jupiter gasped, cradling her injured arm against her body
as she reached Yoshi's side.  "Isn't this ...?"
     "Where we started?  Yeah, it is," he said, his gaze fixed on the
rushing water.  The stone platform they'd crossed earlier was gone, of
course, shattered by Saekianna's whip.  The tunnel they'd originally
come through was across from them now; they must be standing above
the drainage lines that they'd been swept down.
     Mercury surveyed the scene carefully.  There was no sign of the
Nightmistress or any of her people, of course; it had been too long since
the attack.
     "The scents are still lingering in the air," Yoshi confirmed.  "This
is the place, all right.
     "I think we can reach the tunnel that bitch was in," Jupiter said,
her voice a low growl.  "Maybe we can still track her.  Catch up to Tux
and the princess."
     "Problem," Mercury said.  "She was actually in two tunnels."
     "Say again?"
     "You and I were busy with Yoshi," Mercury began, then bit her
lip and glanced at the werewolf.  He was still staring out at the water,
though, and gave no visible reaction.  "So, uh, I guess you saw Tuxedo
Mask and Sailor Moon chase Saekianna down that tunnel."  She pointed.
"But what you missed was when she reappeared over there and took out
the platform before we could react."
     "She sacrificed her own people," Jupiter spat.  "They went into
the water with us.  What kind of woman does that?"
     "Actually, she didn't," Mercury told them.  She quickly related to
the others Mars' warning about the talisman magick that had been used
against them."
     "So that's how they pulled it off.  Man, those witches have got a
lot of tricks up their sleeves, I'll give them that."  Jupiter shook her head,
anger simmering in those blazing green eyes.
     "So your people were chasing a decoy," Yoshi muttered.  In a
flash he moved, exploding into action so quickly that Mercury jumped.
He landed on the broken stone at the entrance to the tunnel Sailor Moon
had followed the others into, and carefully began sniffing the air.
Mercury opened her mouth to call out a warning, but Jupiter nudged her,
giving her a tiny head shake.  Mercury nodded reluctantly.  Yoshi knew
as well as any of them the risks of getting another close-up snootful of
whatever the Sisterhood had dosed him with.  Bringing it up again would
just be adding insult to injury.
     "Like I thought," he announced, raising his voice to be heard
over the sound of the water.  "These talismans, they've got no scent.
They look like people but don't smell like 'em.  Your guys went down
here, but that woman never did.  She must have gone this way."  He eyed
the distance to the next outcropping of stone, then unleashed one of those
gorgeously lithe leaps, making the jump look effortless.
     "Yeah.  Yeah, she definitely went down this one."
     "So?" Jupiter asked.  "Do we go after the princess, or the bitch?"
     "If Sailor Moon is following a decoy, we have to let her know,"
Mercury said, torn.  "She and Tuxedo Mask could end up lost, or
trapped.  But we can't afford to let the Nightmistress just go.  If there's
any chance of finding her, we have to take it.  There's too much at
stake."
     "Can you get close to the area under the temple?" Yoshi asked.
Mercury jumped again.  The shifter moved with eerie stealth; she hadn't
noticed him return to their side.
     "I think so," Mercury told him.  "With the tracking data I
accumulated from when we entered the tunnels, and what Mars gave me,
I'm pretty sure I can get us close."
     "Then you two take the bitch," he said, "and I'll track your lost
lambs."
     "What?  Yoshi ..."  Jupiter grabbed his arm, and though she tried
to hide it, Mercury could tell her friend was as torn as she was.  Alone,
Yoshi would be more vulnerable.  But while they had a job to do, they
couldn't abandon their princess.
     "Relax," he told her, taking her hand and gently pulling her close.
"It'll be safer this way.  Now that they know about me, they could have
set another trap, taken precautions against being tracked by scent.  This
decoy won't have bothered.  I'll find your princess and her man and
come charging in at the last moment with the cavalry.  Okay?"
     Jupiter looked away, and he gently took her chin and drew her
gaze back to his.
     "Okay?" he repeated softly.  Mercury felt acutely uncomfortable,
an intruder in a moment of intimacy, and she looked away as the two
shared a moment of unspoken understanding.
     "You better be careful," Jupiter whispered at last.
     "That goes double for you, Makki," he said.  Then he pulled her
in, mindful of her injured arm, and they shared a long, lingering kiss
while Mercury found some fascinating rocks to study.
     "Hey," Yoshi said at last, his voice low and throaty.  "Mercury."
     "Yes?"  Mercury hoped she wasn't blushing too much as she
turned to meet his gaze.
     "Take care of her, okay?"
     "Hey, you big galoot!  I can take care of myself, you know!"
     "I will," Mercury promised.  She could tell that, for all her
protestation, Jupiter was pleased by Yoshi's words.
     "See you two later," the blond werewolf promised.
     Then he was gone.
     "You think they're okay?" Jupiter murmured, gazing longingly
down the tunnel.
     "Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask?  I doubt a decoy will give them
much trouble.  They're probably on their way back here now.  Yoshi will
meet them half-way."
     "Yeah, you're probably right.  Still, I wish we were going after
them."
     "She'd want us to do this, Jupiter."
     "I know.  That's why I'm doing it.  Come on, let's go throw a
big-ass monkey wrench into the Bitch-terhood's plans."

***

     "Who do you think they are?" Neptune asked softly, sheltered in
the small copse of trees at the edge of the property.
     "Hard to say," Uranus replied, staring intently.  "Definitely not
police.  They're being far too stealthy, for starters."
     "Sisterhood?"
     Now, that was a possibility.  Maybe they'd finally caught a
break.  But it didn't feel right, somehow.  These people moved with
military precision, not at all how Uranus expected the Sisterhood to act.
     "You're both wrong," a voice informed them, and Uranus
actually jumped, spinning in place, Neptune at her side in a flash.
     "Damn it!" Uranus snapped.  "Artemis, do NOT do that!"
     "Sorry," the little white cat said with cheerful insincerity, his tail
flicking in sharp little patterns as he looked up at them.
     "We didn't expect to see the two of you here," Luna added,
oozing around a nearby tree with liquid feline grace.
     "We decided to check the house again, see if we could contact the
girls from the tunnel entrance," Neptune told her.  "And what exactly did
you mean when you said we were both wrong?"
     "We got close enough to hear what was going on," Artemis said
with more than a trace of smugness.  Oh, we're never going to hear the
end of this one, Uranus thought ruefully.  "Cats.  Silent, stealthy, as
intangible as shadows, the secret weapon in the arsenal of ..."
     "Oh, stop it," Luna sighed.
     "Come on, I had a whole thing working there!"
     "They're White Order," Luna told them, rolling her eyes.
"Alieva's Crusaders."
    "Wait," Uranus said, raking her pale blonde hair back with
gloved fingers.  "How did the Order find out the Sisterhood was here?"
     "That I don't know," Artemis admitted.  "Bad luck?"
     "Far too coincidental for my tastes," Neptune scowled, the
tempestuous clouding of her stormy eyes giving Uranus a delicious
shiver.
     "Wait a minute," Uranus said, holding her hand up.  "Just wait.
What if ...?"
     "What?" Luna prompted.
     "I'm just thinking.  Now, if I'm a Tyrian Sultana ..."
     "Meow," Neptune purred huskily.
     "Oh, get a room, you two," Artemis sighed.
     "Later," Uranus promised, more to Neptune than Artemis.  "But
the Sultana der Gris was double-crossing the Sisterhood, yes?  At least,
that's the working theory.  It makes sense that if she was going to lead
anyone to the Sisterhood, she would want to ensure that they were
completely wiped out.  Thus ensuring that they never got a chance to
indulge in their legendary penchant for vengeance."
     "But she never got the chance to rat out the Sisters," Artemis pointed
out.  "Unless ..."
     "Unless she had already seen to it that the information on those
discs would reach the Order if something happened to her," Neptune
finished.
     "Or she had already put her plan in motion," Uranus added.
     "I miss the days when we just wrecked entire streets throwing magick
at pompous guys in ugly uniforms," Artemis sighed.
     "No doubt," Uranus said.  "But if the Order has seen a copy of
those discs ..."
     "Then we won't have to worry about the Sisterhood," Artemis
said brightly.
     "The Knights of Her Shining Crusade," Neptune mused.  "I
wonder ..."
     "What?" Luna asked.
     "Yes," Uranus agreed softly.  "We should assume the worst."
     "What are you two talking about?" Luna demanded, her feline
eyes moving from one senshi to the other impatiently.
     "There has long been rumoured to be a hidden dagger sheathed within
the ranks of the Crusaders," Uranus told her.  "Dedicated to the
preservation of the White Order.  At any cost."
     "Aw, come on," Artemis scoffed.  "The Inquisition?  That's
tinfoil hat stuff."
     "No," Neptune murmured.  "It's not."
     Silence.
     "You know that?  Like, for a fact?" Artemis blurted.
     "The Inquisition does exist," Uranus told him.  "And they are
every bit as ruthless as the stories say."
     "And if the heads of the Order saw a chance to finish the
Sisterhood, they would definitely send their Inquisitors."  Neptune stared
off through the trees, and Uranus knew where her partner's thoughts had
wandered.  Yes, the Inquisition existed, and had definitely earned its
reputation.
     "This is nonsense!" Luna cried.  "There's no way that such a
thing is true!"
     "Shadowy groups exist within most of the temples," Uranus told
the cat with a mirthless smile.  "Publically they may maintain a civilised
facade, but the history of infighting and treachery between different
religious factions is a nasty fact of life.  It may have been driven
underground by the kingdom's secular law agencies, but it still exists."
     "Please," Luna said beseechingly.  "Uranus, you must never say
such things to Usagi.  She adores the Order, they practically raised her
..."
     "Luna," Uranus interrupted.  "It isn't really up to us.  If the Inquisitors
run into our people down there, the result is out of our hands.  Still, the
senshi are a known group in this city, with no affiliation to any religious
groups.  They should be all right."
     "As long as the Inquisition doesn't discover Rei's true identity,"
Neptune said darkly.
     "Oh," Artemis said in a small voice.  "That would be not good.
That would be very not good."
     "The tunnel entrance was hidden," Luna pointed out, whiskers
twitching.  "You all missed it the first time through, right?"
     "For a chance to finish the Sisterhood, that lot will tear that place
apart," Uranus countered.  "We must assume that, sooner or later, they
will find this tunnel.  Any idea where it is?"
     "Basement furnace room is all V told me," Artemis said.  "But
..."
     "Look!" Luna hissed.
     At first, Uranus wasn't sure what Luna had seen.  Through the
trees, she could see that the one door that was visible from their
position had opened, a cloaked figure leaning out to talk to a grim
looking man who'd been walking the perimeter.  Without warning, two
small black shapes plummeted from the sky and sliced through the air,
rocketing past the startled men and into the house in a flash.
     "What in the hells?"
     "Phobos and Deimos," Artemis groaned.  "I guess they made it
here after all."
     "What can they do against all those Inquisitors?" Neptune asked
as robed and cloaked figures seemed to materialise all around the house,
running to cover the exits.
     "With any luck, they'll just look like a couple of birds who flew
in by accident," Artemis said.
     "Speaking of luck," Uranus said softly.  "Ours is running out.
They look like they're starting to search the perimeter.  We've got to pull
back before we're discovered."
     "What about the girls?" Luna asked.  "This could mean trouble for
them, especially if they end up in a crossfire between groups."
     "We're not abandoning them," Uranus promised.  "But we need a
plan.  Saturn is meeting with her contact now.  Maybe she can get us
some info on access to this tunnel.  Failing that, we call the police and tell
them of suspicious activity at this location."
     "Mention coffins and nighttime activity, and you'll have all the
police you'd want," Artemis chimed in.
     "Good thinking.  You two stay and watch the house.  This may well
be the only access to the tunnels they entered.  At the very least, it's an
access point they can be sure of.  The Order went in here, they'll likely
come out here as well.  If there's any sign of trouble, get the police here
right away and worry about the fallout later.  We need to check in with
Saturn and Pluto, but we should be back shortly."
     "Good luck," Artemis called softly.  Uranus gave him a wave as
she and Neptune slipped away from the widening search.
     Luck.  Yes, that would be a nice change.
     Unfortunately, the luck waiting for them was all bad.

***

     "She has arrived, Nightmistress."  Meredith kept her expression
neutral, but it was not difficult for Saekianna to sense the woman's
disapproval.  She did not trust their new ally.  Nor should she.  The
creature was a slave to her appetites, clearly unreliable.  Still, as a tool
she could prove useful.
     "Ah, there you are, Maia," Saekianna said smoothly.  The flame-
haired succubus peered around the chamber with obvious distaste before
allowing her gaze to settle back on the Nightmistress.
     "What a dump," the succubus announced.  "This whole
underground set-up you've got here is pretty shabby, not like that nice
mansion."
     "A temporary condition, I assure you," Saekianna replied.
Maia's insolence fairly begged for retribution, but Saekianna stayed her
hand.  Let the succubus run her lovely mouth while she could.  If she
proved her worth, then Saekianna would tolerate it.  If she failed, well,
what was lost?  Maia would buy them some time at the very least.
     "Nightmistress ..." Meredith whispered.  Saekianna stilled her
protest with a subtle gesture, merely watching as Maia's lips curled in a
subtle moue of distaste.
     "Big," the succubus commented, nodding at the chamber around
them.  "All these pipes and tanks and things. What's it all for?"
     "Oh, just a little surprise for our enemies," Saekianna told her
dismissively.  "It's all quite mundane, really.  At any rate, it doesn't
concern you, my dear.  I have a favour to ask of you."
     "Really?"  Saekianna smiled, ignoring the bored disinterest in Maia's
voice, simply taking the bewitching creature by the arm and guiding her
towards the far wall of the spacious chamber.  She surreptitiously pressed
a certain point just above the succubus's elbow as she did so and was
rewarded by an ever-so-slight quickening of breath by her companion.
     "Oh, I know you've done much for our order already, returning
our Black Rose to us," Saekianna murmured throatily.  "But I think
you'll enjoy this."  She stopped, using her grip on Maia's arm to turn the
succubus so they stood face-to-face.  The succubus really was quite
stunning, masses of bright red hair framing her lush body in silken
disarray, tawny skin drawn smooth and tight over flawless bone
structure, all topped off by the otherworldly touches of tiny horns, wings
and a tail.
     "I thought you were too busy to entertain me personally," Maia
crooned, moving closer.  An ordinary woman might have been snared by
the creature's primal allure, but Saekianna's training was more than up
to the task of maintaining control.
     "Ah, such a tempting offer," she told the eager succubus with a
lingering gaze.  "But events conspire against us, and I must attend this
place.  No, I actually have another task in mind. Do you know what lies
back there?"
     "Certainly," Maia sniffed, glancing in the direction of
Saekianna's extended finger.  "Another dark, dank, cold tunnel.  I came
in through it."
     "Ah, yes.  But about a hundred feet down that tunnel is a fork.  The
one you came down leads to the surface.  The other, ah, at the far end of
that other tunnel, my dear Maia, is another chamber.  My people have
been leading a couple of troublemakers around in these tunnels for some
time now, and soon we will draw them there.  My resources are spread
thin, but if you could deal with this matter for me, I would be most ...
grateful."  She punctuated the request by brushing a stray lock of hair
slowly back from Maia's cheek.
     "This isn't more of those sailor girls, is it?" Maia asked
suspiciously, feline eyes narrowing.  "Because those little bitches are a lot
of trouble, lady."
     "There is one," Saekianna admitted.  "Along with her consort.  A
very beautiful man who favours a tuxedo."
     "A man?" Maia asked, wetting her lower lip slowly with the tip
of her tongue.  "Beautiful, you say?"
     "Tall," Saekianna breathed.  "Hair dark as night.  Deep blue
eyes.  Lithe and supple of limb, with a strong chin and a mouth best
described as kissable."
     "Her consort.  She won't give up a prize like that without a
fight," Maia grumbled.  But her resolve was weakening, and Saekianna
knew just how to seal the deal.
     "He is worth the fight," she told the succubus, reaching inside her
jacket.  "But I have something here that will give you the advantage."
Slowly, she drew a long, slender case from inside, opening it to show the
contents to Maia.
     "A flower?" Maia blurted.
     "A black rose," Saekianna corrected her, smiling to hide her
displeasure at Maia's disdain.  "I have placed some strong enchantments
upon this flower.  Catch her by surprise and throw it at her.  This rose
will neutralise the girl very effectively.  Then you can take your time
with her consort.  I assume you can handle a single man without much
trouble?"
     "Of course," Maia said haughtily.  She reached out and took the
case, closing it smartly.  "And when I'm done with him, I just kill the
girl, right?"
     "If she is bound by the rose, she will be helpless," Saekianna
murmured in a low, compelling voice as she traced the low-cut edge of
Maia's brief top teasingly, her long lacquered nail raking flawless flesh,
casually evoking the fires of desire.  "Bring her to me and I will reward
you greatly."
     "And her consort?" Maia asked with ill-disguised hunger.
     "He will be yours to keep," Saekianna promised.  "He can be the
first member of you new harem.  In return for the girl, I will find you a
rich hunting ground where you can claim as many men as you wish
without fear of discovery."
     "Lady, I'm your girl!" Maia grinned.  "This sounds like the
beginning of a beautiful partnership!"
     "Good hunting," Saekianna called softly as the eager succubus turned
and dashed down the waiting tunnel.  Maia waved once, and then was
gone.
     "Do you really think she can do it?" Meredith asked as she came up
beside Saekianna, casting a distrustful glance after Maia's retreating
form.
     "I do not know," Saekianna confessed.  "But I tell you this,
Meredith.  I let arrogance blind me once, and the White Moon girl's
power was more than I could handle.  Yurina is right, direct conflict does
not favour us here.  I, of all people, should have remembered that our
strength lies in cunning and deception.  Let the succubus distract them.  If
she succeeds, then that girl will be ours, and I will not have had to risk
any of our people at this critical juncture.  If she fails, what have we
lost?"
     "Of course," Meredith murmured, her coppery hair falling in a
sleek curtain as she inclined her head.  "Your wisdom will lead us to our
moment of victory, Nightmistress.  I will have those two fools in position
when the succubus arrives."
     "Excellent.  And sign of the others?"
     "Not as yet.  They may have perished in the tunnels."
     "Perhaps.  But I would not count on that.  These girls have
proven to be tenacious foes, Meredith.  And if the traitor lives, she may
find her way here.  I do not wish to sacrifice this element of our plan
unless it is absolutely necessary."  Saekianna strode over to one of the
gleaming metal tanks that seemed so out of place amongst the rusted old
pipes and ancient machinery.  "It will be so glorious, Meredith.  Those
rigid, self-righteous witches will be rutting on the ground like animals,
defiling their most sacred site!"
     "Just as they deserve," Meredith said softly.  "Let them suffer for
all of our Sisters who have fallen to their Inquisition."
     "Yes," Saekianna said, cupping Meredith's pale face in her
hands.  "Soon, Meredith.  Soon we shall begin a reckoning that will have
every priestess in the White Order trembling at the coming of night.  The
Sisterhood shall rule the shadows once more."
     And they shared a passionate kiss there in the dank pit that lay far
beneath their enemy's stronghold, as midnight crept ever closer.

***

     Sailor Moon moved up along the wall as the caped form ahead
waved.  It should have been a thrill, working so closely with Tuxedo
Mask, but her heart was clouded with worry.  None of the others had
followed her, and she couldn't raise them on her comm.  Tuxedo Mask
thought they had likely ended up pursuing a second group of Sisters, and
that sounded reasonable.  They wouldn't have to be very far away to be
out of contact down here.
     Still, she worried about them.  Her fondest wish would have been
to go back, but she couldn't do that.  She'd made the decision to chase
the Sisterhood down here, and now that she had Saekianna's scent, so to
speak, she couldn't let her go.  She had a promise to keep, after all.
     Besides, if she screwed this up, Saturn would have an embolism.
     "Relax," Tuxedo Mask whispered as she drew close to him.
"They'll be fine.  They're all together, Princess."
     "I know," she breathed, brushing her hands over his cape,
wishing for a moment that the thin barrier of her gloves would evaporate.
"I know, I need to focus."
     "I expected her to try and reach the surface by now," the lithe
man frowned, checking the tunnel around the corner.  "If I'm right about
her trying to lead us away from her people, she may have chosen a tunnel
that has no surface access.  She may even have picked one she's
unfamiliar with.  That would explain why we've been able to keep her
off-balance."
     "There's a big cavern down there," Moon noted, peering around
the corner.  "We better hurry, or we'll lose her."
     "She wants us to rush," Tuxedo Mask cautioned.  "Remember
who we're dealing with.  She's no match for you, much less both if us.
She knows that.  She'll try to draw us into a trap, but if that cavern is as
big as it looks then we'll have a chance to catch her in the open.  Then we
can bring her down."
     "Remember my promise," the princess urged softly, taking his
hand in hers.
     "I haven't forgotten," he assured her, warming her with his smile
as he squeezed her hand.  Then they were moving again, assuming their
staggered formation, each hugging a different wall as they moved.  Moon
sensed that this nightmare chase was drawing to an end, and she fought
the urge to just charge in, guns blazing.  Tuxedo Mask was right.  They
couldn't afford to be careless, not with this enemy.
     The rough-hewn walls gave way to smooth stone as they neared
the entrance to the cavern, and to Moon it seemed as though the entrance
was entirely too regular to be natural, almost like a doorway.  Tuxedo
Mask reached the door first, surveyed the scene, and waved her forward.
They moved through one after the other, flattening against the wall.
     "What in ... what is this place?"  Her voice was small, swallowed
up in the gloom, as she gazed in awe at the desolate scene that unfolded
before her.
     "It's a trainyard," Tuxedo Mask said.  He sounded equally
dumbfounded by what they were seeing.  A jackstraw tumble of old train
cars spread out before them, some twined with the rusted old remnants of
metal rails.  It was like some sort of mystic train garden, neglected and
forgotten.  High above them rusted steel beams cris-crossed the ceiling in
a broken web, huge lighting arrays still hanging in some places.
     "It's huge," Moon murmured breathlessly.  "What is such a place
doing down here?  Could it be ... part of Vasta Min?"
     "Don't start believing Venus's fairytales, Princess," Tuxedo
Mask admonished.  "This place is old, but not that old.  The design of
these trains, I haven't seen anything like them outside of a museum.
Look at that."
     She squinted.  There were pools of pale light scattered through
the chamber, raw lumin ore by the look of it.  Not as bright as refined
magestones, but it would do.  "What does that say?"
     "WDTS," he told her, his eyes restlessly scanning the broken
windows of the nearest trains for any sign of trouble.  "West Derry
Transpo Services."
     "West Derry?"
     "It was one of the twenty-two districts that made up the old
capital city," he told her, flashing her that crooked grin again.  "An outer
district, wiped out during the first Sidhe War."
     "Oh."  Moon was not given to intellectual flights of fancy, but
in that moment the weight of centuries was a tangible pressure upon her
skin.  "Then all this ...?"
     "Somehow survived the upheaval intact, and was buried," he
nodded.
     "And she's out there, somewhere," Moon sighed.  "We'll never
find her in all that."
     "We're not giving up," he replied, and his determination buoyed
her, gave her strength.  How was it that she was constantly surrounded by
people who supported her and gave her hope?  She must just be the
luckiest girl in the world.
     "But where do we start?"
     "We've got room now," he told her.  "Enough of this cat-and-
mouse game.  Let's flush her out."
     "How?"  The princess felt as though Saekianna's eyes were on
her, peering out from the ruins of any of a dozen old train cars, filled with
roiling hatred and jealousy.  Tuxedo Mask moved closer and spoke in a
low voice, brief and to the point.  She nodded as he moved away again,
making it impossible for Saekianna to attack them both at once.  Not that
Moon thought the woman would attack, not out in the open.  Mars had
been very plain about one point; the Sisterhood was not big on fair fights.
Saekianna knew she couldn't match Sailor Moon for sheer power.  She
would run if she could, try to find a time and a place that favoured her.
     Well, Moon wasn't going to let that happen.  She was going to
stop the Sisterhood and save them from the vampire's scheming, whether
they wanted to be saved or not.
     She pulled off her tiara, quickly sizing up the shot.  She never
really thought about a throw; in her opinion, thinking about such things
too much just got in the way.  Instead, she snapped her arm out straight,
sending her enchanted tiara knifing through the dark, dank air.  A golden
shimmering disc flew up straight and true, scoring a direct hit on the
rotted metal that had managed to hold up one of the derelict light clusters
for so very long.  The lights separated from the overhead grid with a tired
metallic groan, then plunged straight down like some ruined high-tech
flower.
     The clamour when it hit was impressive, as she'd intended.  It
also hit an open space rather than any of the train cars, which was
likewise quite intentional.  There was no point in crushing Saekianna, no
matter how tempting that notion might be.  Still, Moon took a brief
moment to appreciate just how neatly she had pulled off their little plan;
she half wished Saturn had been there to see it.
     "There!" Tuxedo Mask shouted as she snatched her returning tiara out
of the air.  As broken glass and metal blossomed through the air, falling
with a discordant crash, they saw Saekianna break from cover behind a
sagging old train engine with a faded number on its side.  She sprinted
across the debris-littered stone, heading for a cluster of bedraggled
passenger cars, and Moon and Tuxedo Mask set off in hot pursuit,
spreading out to flank her.
     This is it, Moon exulted.  We've finally got her!
     She never saw her attacker.  One moment she was closing in on a
fleeing Saekianna, the next something struck her in the back.  Instantly
she was enveloped in a tangle of thorny vines, crying out as she stumbled
and fell.  A dark shape soared silently over her head, but she only caught
a glimpse of it as she tumbled along the hard stone, ending up on her
belly where she lay, dazed.
     Something was wrong.  It wasn't just that the whip-like vines
had tightened around her body, making it impossible to move.  There
was also the strange numbness that had swelled within her body. Tuxedo
Mask's shouts seemed to come from a long way off , and even though she
could tell he was in trouble, Moon found she could barely even struggle.
Delicious lassitude overwhelmed her, tried to drown all thoughts of
resistance as an intoxicating perfume enveloped her in a warm, thick
fragrance.
     That was when she saw the velvety black petals of the first
blossom.
     Black roses.
     Footsteps echoed sharply on the stone, drawing nearer.  Not
Tuxedo Mask's boots, but the sharp staccato report of high heels.  She
tried to look up, painfully aware of just how vulnerable she was, but her
gaze got no higher than the expensive boots that came to a stop right in
front of her face.
     "Well, well, well," a throaty voice came from somewhere above.
"That is a very suitable posture for you, little girl."
     "You," Moon gasped weakly.  The gleaming black boots shifted as
Saekianna crouched down.  Moon felt a dull, distant pain as the
Nightmistress grabbed her by the hair and lifted her head so that their
gazes met.
     "How rude," the woman purred, an expression of dark delight
looking right at home on her cruelly beautiful face.  "In future, I will
teach you to address your betters with respect, girl."
     "Tuxedo ... Mask," she managed to say.  "He ..."
     "Oh, your ex-consort is being cared for," Saekianna informed
her.  "The succubus gets him and I get you.  Quite an equitable
exchange, yes?"
     Husky laughter caressed her as the woman stood, pulling Moon
upright with dismissive ease, as though the captive girl were no more
than a pile of old laundry.  Get it together, Moon thought blearily.
You're in big trouble here.  And Mamo-chan, too.  But the best she could
manage was a weak writhing that only served to amuse her captor.
     "It's quite impressive that you can manage to resist even that
much," Saekianna told her, using her grip on the girl's hair to pull her
close.  Mesmerising dark eyes stared into her from mere inches away, and
the princess found herself succumbing to their compelling pull.  "But the
dark enchantments on our roses can bind even the most stubborn prey."
     "You don't understand," Moon whispered.  "I ... promised ..."
What had she promised?  Why was she even here?
     "Shhhh.  Don't worry, my pet.  Just relax," Saekianna crooned,
placing her finger gently over Moon's lips.  "From now on, you live only
to serve me."
     Teetering on the brink of sweet darkness, Moon wanted to just let
go.  She craved that oblivion with an intensity that was nearly sexual; it
was a need that dominated her entire being.  To just let go and drown in
perfumed slumber, could anything be more wonderful?
     Her eyes were lidded, heavy, and Saekianna's face was blurring.
This was right, wasn't it?  It felt so good, it must be right.  It must be ...
     Somewhere far beneath the alluring swells of the intoxicating
dark, something stirred.
     Rei?
     It prickled, a sensation that seemed to be far away from her, but
...
     Minako?
     She could feel it.  Not everything was numb.
     Mako-chan?
     This was warm.  And bright.
     Ami?
     And getting brighter.
     Mamo-chan?  Everybody ... everybody's counting on me.  That's
right.  I can't just give up.
     I can't.
     Saekianna's face snapped back into focus, and Moon was aware
of the pain of hundreds of tiny thorns puncturing her skin, matched by the
sudden stab of agony in her head and neck as Saekianna used a handful
of blonde hair to jerk her captive's head back.
     "What's this?" the woman hissed.  "What are you doing?"
     There was only one answer Sailor Moon was willing to give.
Focussing on that tiny spark of light, she kindled it with hope, fuelled it
with the voices of her loved ones.
     And then she let it loose.
     She felt the nimbus of light more than saw it.  Warmth suffused
her body, rippled along her nerves and radiated outwards, bathing
everything in purifying luminescence.  In that moment, it was as if she
could feel all of her senshi, their essences so close she could reach out
and touch them.  They supported her, loved her, gave her strength.
     It was incredible.
     Moon blinked.  Why was she looking up?  That was the ceiling,
wasn't it?  She blinked again, only realising after she sat up that she
shouldn't have been able to do that.  She lowered her gaze, wonder
rendering her speechless.  Her body thrummed with the faint afterimages
of power and the pinprick roadmap that numerous tiny thorns had left
across her skin.
     Something gave easily as she put her hand down, and a sweet,
heady scent rose up around her, warm spring perfume in this cold and
barren place.  Raising her hand, she stared at the flower cupped there,
then down at all the others that lay under and around her.
     The roses.  They'd broken her fall.
     And their petals had all turned to glistening, perfect silvery-white.
     "Awesome," she whispered.  As though the sound of her own
voice had broken the spell, she felt reality crash over her in a jagged
wave and leapt to her feet, cherishing the familiar tendrils of heat that
radiated from the ginzuoshou at her chest as she summoned her sceptre,
swung it around frantically.  It took her a few moments to realise that
Saekianna had disappeared.
     Or had she?  Sailor Moon's eyes were drawn to something lying
on the ground not far away, and she moved closer she saw that she had
not imagined it.  Saekianna was gone, but here lay a crude paper doll,
inscribed with mystic symbols.  Twined around it was a single long
platinum hair.
     Some kind of trick, a fake Saekianna?  Had they been chasing a
shadow all this time?  That was the Sisterhood's speed, after all.  But that
would keep.  Right now, she had more urgent matters to attend to.  There
was no sign of Tuxedo Mask, and from what the doll-Saekianna had
said, he was fighting a succubus.  Or was that a fake, too?
     Sailor Moon took off towards the nearest cluster of wrecked
trains.  Tuxedo Mask would have cautioned her, told her to be careful,
but she couldn't bear the sensation of dread that had coalesced in her
belly.  He was in danger, she knew it.  She had to find him.
     There were signs of struggle: a black top hat that lay mortally
wounded on the ground, squashed nearly flat, three red roses embedded,
stem-first, into the side of an upside-down caboose, and further on, a silk-
lined cape hanging, discarded and torn, from a jutting length of rusty rail.
     But it was only when she made her way deeper, past a pair of
engines which had been rammed together nose-to-nose that she heard the
sounds.  Low.  Guttural.  Animal.
     She poured on the speed, burst into a large clearing amidst the
derelicts, and stumbled to a halt.  No, she thought numbly.  No, this can't
be.  It just can't.  Please, don't let this be true.
     Tuxedo Mask lay on his back, arms flung out to the sides.  His
tuxedo jacket was missing, and his white shirt was torn open, exposing
the lean muscle of his chest.  The drugged, vacant look in his eyes was
bad enough, but the creature straddling him was far worse.
     So this was a succubus.  She straddled the captive man's hips,
and although her luxuriant mane of crimson hair pooled in concealing
waves around the point where their bodies were joined, the way she was
moving her lush body in a slow, sensuous rhythm that left no doubt as to
what she was doing.
     "Ah," she sighed, her lips parting moistly as her lidded eyes met
Moon's across the intervening distance.  "So the fake priestess couldn't
hold you, hmmm?  Figures.  Ah!  Oh, ummm.  Don't mind me, cutie, I
started without you."  The succubus raked long, crimson nails along
Tuxedo Mask's naked chest, drawing blood, then raising them to her lips
and lazily licking them clean.  "Nothing tastes like a man," she moaned.
     "You," Sailor Moon whispered.  The numbing horror she'd felt
at her first glimpse of this wicked tableau was finally fading, dissipating
quickly in the face of a rising fury unlike any she'd ever felt.  "Get off of
him."
     "Ah-ah," the succubus breathed as Moon began to raise her
sceptre.  The nails of her free hand lengthened into scarlet daggers, and
she positioned them above Tuxedo Mask's arched throat.  "Let's not
have any unpleasantness, Princess.  Lose the magick stick, or pretty boy
loses his head.  Or maybe something just as important."  Her other hand
snaked down to the point where her hips straddled him, and her tongue
snaked out to trace a wet trail across her lips.  "And girlie, that would be
a crime.  So, what's it going to be?"
     Rage battered at Moon's self-control, fed by the fact that the
creature didn't even pause in her sinuous dance, only smirking as she
pinned the semi-conscious man to the ground, threatening to kill him or
worse even as she performed a sick parody of the act of lovemaking.
There was no compassion in those feral feline eyes, only hunger, and
Sailor Moon understood that this winged harpy would do what she
threatened without hesitation.
     There was simply no choice.
     "Good," the creature crooned as Moon let the sceptre hang
loosely at her side.  "Now throw it over there.  Easy.  We wouldn't want
loverboy to lose his heads, now, would we?"
     Impotent fury curdling in her gut, Moon tossed her weapon far
out of reach, eliciting a smug smile from the ravishing succubus.
     "Excellent," she murmured.  "Now ..."  She tensed, arched, and
her captive cried out, a sound of mingled pain and pleasure that tore at
Moon's heart.  This was cruel, too cruel, but even in the moment of
climax the succubus's ravenous gaze never slipped, never left her.
     "My," she sighed at last as Tuxedo Mask lay still beneath her,
breathing laboured and ragged.  "Four times already.  He's quite a vital
young man, your consort.  And beautiful.  You'll notice I took the mask
off.  I wanted to see his face."
     "I did what you said," Moon gritted.  "Now let him go."
     "Well, here's the thing," the succubus replied, stretching so that
her full breasts threatened to burst from the tiny top that restrained them.
"I'm still hungry.  You see, succubi feed on the essence of their lovers,
and I've been starved for a very long time.  Punishment from the Crimson
Queen, nearly drove me mad, like you care.  At any rate, a starved
succubus is a dangerous succubus, more for her prey than anything else.
I've fed very deeply on pretty boy here, more deeply than I have in a long
time, and if I bring him one more time right now, I may very well kill
him.  And that would be a terrible waste."
     "Then let him go," Moon repeated.
     "Having your man certainly took the edge off," the succubus
admitted, running her hand teasingly over his bare, heaving chest.  "So
I'll tell you what.  You take his place.  You let me feed on you, and I'll let
him recover."
     "You'll let him go?"  It was a dumb question, but Moon wanted
to keep her talking.  As long as she was talking, there was hope that
something would happen, some opportunity would arise for rescue.
     "No," the succubus purred, leaning forward and running her
fingers through her captive's dishevelled dark hair.  "But I'll keep you
both, instead of turning you over to the Nightmistress."
     "You're Maia," Moon said.  "The one who escaped with
Yurina."
     "Ah, my reputation precedes me," Maia said sleekly.  "So, do we
have a deal?"
     "All right," Moon said meekly.  "Just don't hurt him."
     "Good girl," Maia smirked.  Rocking forward, she gently
disengaged herself from the overcome man with a soft liquid sound,
whipping her top off with one smooth motion as she stood.  Naked, she
shook her hair back and flexed her wings, taking a slow step towards
Sailor Moon.  "Don't look so apprehensive, precious," she purred.  "It
won't hurt.  In fact, it will be the most intense pleasure you've ever
experienced.  After I'm done with you, you won't want an ordinary lover
ever again."
     Moon watched the statuesque huntress move, tawny skin
glistening with sweat in the soft light.  Naked, she was stunning, like a
dark goddess risen to tempt the righteous, corrupt the incorruptible.  She
was sweet sin given form, moving with the languid grace of a hunting
cat.
     All Moon wanted to do was smash the bitch.
     "That's an unpleasant look," Maia chastised her.  "And here I
am, doing you a favour.  I think you should greet me on your knees,
girl."  Her playful smile hardened, emerald eyes glinting like chips of ice.
"So go on.  Kneel."
     Sailor Moon fell to her knees, clasping her hands over her chest
and bowing her head as the seductive witch drew closer, step by
maddeningly slow step, deliberately drawing the moment out.  Moon bit
her lip, keeping her gaze fixed steadfastly on the stone floor in front of
her, until finally Maia's boots came to a stop there.
     "Too bad," Maia breathed.  "You're not even going to put up a fight?
 You'd better entertain me in some other way, girlie."  Her scent was
sweet, a musky perfume that reached past the rational part of the mind to
insinuate itself directly around the darkest heart of desire, inflaming wild
lust with contemptuous ease.  If Tuxedo Mask's scent was on her, Moon
couldn't tell.  It was Maia, all Maia.
     Long nails caressed her chin, slipping under to force her head back
until their gazes met, huntress and prey.  "Now," Maia lilted sweetly, full
lips parted as she let her gaze linger on the kneeling girl's submissive
form.  "Let's get you out of that ugly dress."
     "As you wish," Moon whispered.
     There was a flash of light, and for a split-second Maia was
thrown off-balance.  That was the moment Moon had been waiting for,
and she did not let it pass.
     Focussing her fury, she struck, slamming her body into the succubus
and throwing the lethally lovely female back.  Maia stumbled but did not
fall; she was terribly strong, and recovered from Moon's attack with
distressing speed.  The senshi barely managed to slip by her opponent,
evading Maia's wildly grasping hand and jumping clear, landing between
the succubus and Tuxedo Mask.  Unfortunately, that meant her sceptre
was still far out of reach, but right now protecting Tuxedo Mask was her
priority.  If Maia got to him again, the princess would be forced to
surrender.  And then they would both be in very big trouble.
     "Interesting trick," Maia growled, turning to face her.  Moon
plucked the white rose from her lapel, glaring at the succubus from
behind her mask.  Minako, she thought, I owe you big time for this little
present of yours.
     "You mess with one Tuxedo Mask," Moon announced boldly, "you
mess with us all."
     "Catchy," Maia sniffed, taking in Moon's new tuxedo-clad form.
"But changing your costume isn't going to make a difference, girlie.
Still, I like it when pretties play hard to get.  Makes my blood run hot."
     Maia smiled that smug, hateful smile, and Moon chose that
moment to snap her arm out sharply, sending her white rose whirling
through the air in a blur.  Maia dodged with unsettling speed, but the
transformed tiara still managed to strike a glancing blow, tearing a shriek
of pain from the succubus.  Moon flipped backwards and was at Tuxedo
Mask's side when the rose returned to her hand.  She spun, standing
protectively over her fallen love, while Maia straightened from a crouch,
disbelief on her face.  Disbelief and a long, bright line of blood, Moon
saw with no little satisfaction.
     "You," Maia breathed, raising her fingers to her face and staring
at the blood that came away on them.  "You little bitch.  You CUT me.  I
was going to treat you nice, but now ... now I'm gonna skin you ALIVE!"
     As Maia raised her voice to a hysteria-edged shriek, Moon
unleashed her rose again, this time throwing far wide of the charging
succubus.  The spinning rose glanced off a train car and ricocheted,
slashing across Maia's back and sending the scarlet-maned succubus
stumbling.  The rose caromed off a second car and returned to Moon's
hand; she spun, preserving as much of the momentum as possible, and
unleashed a third attack.
     This time, Maia fled, turning tail and launching herself into the
air, disappearing behind a jumble of old train cars.  Moon snatched her
rose out of the air and turned, grabbing Tuxedo Mask by the wrist and
pulling him up.  She fought not to look at the scratches on his chest or the
way the front of his trousers had been pulled open.  Focus, she told
herself firmly to keep jealous rage from erupting as she gently pulled his
pants closed over his vulnerability.  First things first.
     Slinging his arm over her shoulder, she half-carried, half-dragged
the man towards the nearest shelter.  Only once he was safe could she
fight that deranged harpy.  Clasping the pale rose in her teeth, she fought
to get closer to her goal, trying to look in every direction for Maia's next
attack.  The creature was far stronger than she'd expected.  Could it be
that Tuxedo Mask's stolen vitality was the cause?
     The toppled train cars seemed to hover just out of reach, like one
of those nightmares where you run and run but never move, but as
horrible as this situation was, it was all too real.  She lurched into the lee
of the wrecked cars, legs burning, lungs on fire, and set her stricken lover
down as gently as she could.  Wiping the sweat out of her eyes with the
back of one gloved hand, she scanned again for Maia.  Nothing.  She
supposed she should have been glad, but she couldn't bring herself to
believe that Maia had given up.  Steeling herself, she slipped her arms
under Tuxedo Mask's body and slid him into a sheltered alcove formed
by the buckled metal.  It would be nearly impossible for Maia to find him
here, especially if she had to fight off Sailor Moon.
     "Usako."
     "Mamo-chan!"  His face was horribly pale and wan, his voice
breathy.  She grasped his hands in hers, relief making her dizzy.
     "I'm ... sorry," he gasped.
     "Don't!" she said sternly.  "Don't apologise to me!  This isn't
your fault!  She did this to you, and I'm going to punish her for it!  You
have to stay in there for now, okay?"
     "Be ... careful," he choked out.  "She's strong ..."
     "Don't worry," she whispered.  "Just stay safe."
     She leaned down and kissed his pale lips tenderly, then pulled
herself away.  She wanted to stay with him, but he wouldn't be safe that
way.  The fake Saekianna could have sent a message to the real one.
Maia could be bringing help.  Moon couldn't huddle in a corner and feel
sorry for herself.  She needed to be ready.
     When they came, they would find her waiting.
     She slipped through the gloom, moving as silently as she could
over the hard stone.  No sign of Maia yet.  Good.  She crept cautiously up
to the edge of one badly sagging wreck of indeterminate origin, peering
around the corner.
     There.  That was the spot.
     But her sceptre was gone.
&n