Chapter 5 - Episode 4: Obsession

Sailor Moon P
Episode 4: Obsession

Clouds were blanketing the sky as Olivia pedaled her bicycle across town. The tires ran thought the standing puddles left over from the last nights’ rain. It was a Friday afternoon, and she was making her way to the Hino Shrine where Raye lived with her grandfather. Raye was having a meeting of the Sailor Soldiers. She’d had meetings like this before, but this was the first one Olivia had been to. The last one that she’d had on Wednesday of that week, Olivia didn’t go to because she had a Strings concert scheduled. It was a concert that ended up being very important to her life as a Sailor Soldier. But that was what they were going to discuss at the Shrine meeting, the recent turn of events brought on by the Negaverse and its new strategy. The bicycle bounced along the uneven sidewalk as she passed Tenth Street Memorial Park. The park was practically deserted in light of the approaching rain. Still, there were kids playing soccer or baseball under the trees whose leaves were turning gold on the edges in the early October air.
Leaving the park behind, she turned down a couple more streets until she had pulled up in front of Cherry Grove Temple. Amy was just arriving off the city bus when Olivia pulled up. “Oh, Olivia, I’m glad you were able to make it this time.” She said, combing a piece of her short blue hair behind her ear. “I was afraid that you weren’t going to be able to come.”
“No, I’m here.” Olivia said, dismounting. “Only because it’s Friday, though. Mom wouldn’t have let me come with all the homework I’ve got for this weekend if it wasn’t.” She carried her bike up the stairs and leaned it against a tree once inside the walls of the shrine. From there, she and Amy stepped up onto a wooden porch and then into Raye’s room through the sliding door.
Everyone was already inside waiting for them. Raye sat at the end of the table in a red sweatshirt and jeans, her long black hair hitting the floor behind her as she sat, kneeling. The other girls were still in their Tenth Street Junior High School uniforms. Serena, her long blonde hair pulled up into two buns on her head, was happily eating the cookies Raye’s grandfather had brought as study snacks. For all he knew, the girls were there to study, and not holding a meeting of six heroines for justice and two talking cats, concerning the fate of the world. Mina was sitting across from Serena, her long blonde hair pulled back in a huge red bow. She also was happily munching the cookies. Lita was writing in a notebook with an open textbook in front of her. She was apparently having a hard time because she was chewing on the end of her pencil and her green eyes were set in frustration. They all looked up when Amy and Olivia took off their wet shoes and sat down.
“Its about time!” Raye cried. “We’ve been waiting here forever!”
“Sorry! My school gets out later than yours!” Olivia defended, taking a cookie. “Plus I had to bike over here!” Kneeling on a cushion, her long golden-blonde hair narrowly missed brushing the floor.
“Come on girls, let’s start this meeting.” Artemis, a magic white cat with a yellow crescent moon on his forehead, jumped up on the table next to Lita.
Luna, a similar cat with black fur sat across from him, next to Amy who’d just sat down. “This is a very important meeting! We need to figure out what the Negaverse is trying to achieve by creating these evil Sailor Soldiers.”
“Tuxedo Mask said that they were looking for an eighth Rainbow Crystal.” Lita said, “but I don’t know if I trust him. Plus Malachite and his cat said something about Crystal Fractures.”
“Tuxedo Mask is another mystery we need to assess.” Luna said.
“Why don’t we just ask Olivia?” Serena suggested, shooting a jealous blue eye to the youngest member of the group.
Olivia’s face flushed, surprised at having all eyes turned to her. Luna and Artemis were staring with particular interest. “What do you know about Tuxedo Mask?”
The paleness of her face turned pink. “Nothing, really.”
“Oh, come on!” Serena persisted. “He thinks your special, now what’s the scoop?”
“Nothing! Really.” Olivia said, growing redder, “I just met him last weekend!” Then she assumed a stupid sort of grin. “Plus he’s really kinda cute.”
Luna chuckled and shook her head.
Artemis, however, remained serious and moved on with business. “You mentioned Malachite’s cat, what about that?”
“Yeah, he had a cat with him.” Mina said, her mouth full of cookie, “it talked, too”
“A talking cat!?!” Artemis cried, standing. “This could be serious!”
Luna was feeling the anxiety as well. “What else did you observe about this talking cat?”
“He was really close to black.” Serena said. “He looked kinda blue, even.”
“I remember that it always had its ears back.” Amy added.
“As I recall, its eyes were yellow, and…” Raye took a second to think a little harder, “…and it also had a moon on its forehead. An orange one that was upside down.”
“And he told us his name the last time we saw him!” Olivia realized. “But I don’t remember what it was.”
“It was something sinister.” Amy said.
“Sinister?” Serena asked. “What do you mean?”
“You know, like ‘The wrath of Khan’ or Darth Vader.” Lita explained.
“Oh, I get it.”
“Darth Vader, hmm…” Olivia closed her blue-hazel eyes and ran through the events of the day before. They had been playing basketball, and then Sailor Phekda came in, then Malachite, and the cat had been with him...Darth? Did that sound right? Barth, Carth? Farth? Garth? Garth! “That’s it!”
“What’s it?” Mina asked.
“Garth! Garth was his name! It remember it now.” Olivia finished. “Garth the Midnight Cat.”
“Doesn’t sound familiar.” Artemis admitted. “We should be on alert for him.”
“What about these evil Sailor Soldiers you’ve told us about?” Luna asked. “Who are they?”
“They’ve always been normal people.” Olivia answered. “The first one, Porrima I think, was a girl my age that was part of our Strings class. The one from yesterday, Phekda, Jennifer and I had seen her earlier when we were waiting for you guys to show up.”
“And Jennifer is-?” Artemis asked warily.
“She’s my big sister.” Olivia replied. “Don’t worry, she doesn’t know my secret.”
“Good.” Artemis looked relieved.
Luna, however, had been thinking. “Olivia, you seem to know a lot about these soldiers when they were just normal girls. Was there anything these two had in common?” When Olivia looked confused, Luna added. “Was there anything that would identify them as targets for the Negaverse?”
“Well,” Olivia had to think, again. Mina crunched another cookie while they waited for her answer. Olivia tried to compare the two victims. She didn’t know that much about either of them. They were both girls for one, young girls, but Lynn, who was Porrima, had been in 5th grade. Olivia didn’t know how old Pam, the basketball player had been, but she was definitely older than that. Pam was tall and Lynn was short. Pam had red hair and Lynn had dusty brown. Pam played basketball and Lynn played cello. Come to think of it, they both didn’t seem content with how they performed in certain areas. Two remarks came to mind. Lynn, when Olivia was behind her in the Strings room before the concert had said; “This is hopeless. All I want is to do something right for once.” And when Olivia was waiting outside the basketball courts, she’d heard Pam say to her coach; “I’ll keep working ‘til I’m good. I’m not good enough yet and I’m going to keep working until I am!” Both girls’ self-confidence was low. Olivia explained this to the others.
“Low self-confidence, huh?” Lita said, closing her textbook. “I don’t see why they were. I mean, Sailor Porrima played that violin better than I’d ever seen anyone do, and that Sailor Phekda, boy! She played basketball better than the NBA.”
“But that wasn’t natural!” Raye said. “Sailor Phekda reacted faster, jumped higher, and moved quicker than is humanly possible. And didn’t that Lynn girl play the cello?”
Olivia nodded.
Amy put a hand to her chin. “I wonder…both girls felt like they were bad at a certain skill, and both girls, when they were Sailor Soldiers, were masters of the same skill…”
Raye nodded her raven-black head. “Good point.”
“Interesting.” Luna said. “And how did you beat these soldiers?”
“Actually,” Serena answered, tapping another cookie off her lower lip, “they kind of beat themselves.”
“How does that work?” Artemis asked.
“I dunno.” Serena continued. “When they got to a certain point, they just kinda self-destructed, you know?”
“Serena! They didn’t blow up!” Raye corrected, “what happened was that all the color drained off them and came out their throat.” She used her own neck as a model, placing her hand at the base of it. “You know, right here where your collarbones meet.”
“The color left their body?” Luna looked puzzled. “How so?”
Mina jumped in and took up the story for Raye. “It was like a ghost came out! It was white, with colors mixed into it. And without it, they looked like they were dead.”
“You mean like their spirit?” Artemis asked.
“No,” Amy corrected. “Their essence.”
“How can you tell the difference?” Lita asked.
“From what I’ve read, when a person’s spirit leaves their body, the person dies. Dies normally that is, going pale, their body systems shutting down, all of that. But with these Soldiers, all color, even their hair was drained. This, leaving them like a wax figure, or the leftover exoskeleton of an insect, pasty and inanimate. That’s not the traits of a spirit. All I can figure is it’s the essence.”
“You’re so smart, Amy.” Serena grinned, biting her cookie.
“Sailor Moon cures the girls with Moon Healing, but by that time Garth and Malachite are gone.” Amy finished.
“Interesting.” Luna seemed to be in deep concentration. “And that’s all you can tell us about the evil Soldiers? Do they have special powers?”
“No, but they do have a magic thing.” Mina said.
Artemis looked perplexed. “A what?”
“A magic thing that they use.” Mina tried to clarify. “Like the last girl had this basketball, but it, like, had a mind of its own! It would fly around in curves, hitting people and roll back to her when she wanted it.”
“An item to assist them…” Luna pondered. “And this item also related to the skill they were concerned with. Did Sailor Porrima have one too?”
“Yeah, a violin.” Lita answered.
“The real question is, what does the Negaverse hope to gain?” Artemis asked “Have they done this just to pester us? You said you heard something about Crystal Fractures, but by the time their pawns have self-destructed, the general is gone.” He closed his eyes and sighed. “It makes very little sense. All we can do is watch and see what ends up.”
“At least we know what the Negaverse is looking for.” Luna concluded, then her head snapped up. “Girls! Keep a lookout for anyone who could be a potential target. If we can get to the victims before Malachite, then we can keep them safe.”
“But Luna,” Raye interrupted. “Everyone is discontent with themselves in one way or another!”
“We will just have to be alert.” Luna said. “That’s all we can do. We’ll meet like this again later. For now, this meeting’s adjourned.”

* * *

Garth, the Midnight Cat, and General Malachite sat perched atop the Tenth Street Department Store in the heart of the district. Garth was, once again, grooming himself as he surveyed all of the people walking beneath them. “Oh, all you little people,” he said to himself, “you all walk the streets of your handmade cities, going about your petty lives. A place like this reeks with self-doubt. You all think your problems are so big. None of you know the suffering other races have faced at your hands. Humans populate the entire universe, and yet you feel like you have to improve yourselves. You feel you must crush all opposition. You destroy planets, snuffing out the cultures and peoples living on them. You destroy planets like mine, Chatla, and yet you still feel like you are powerless. How many will it take, then? How many more races are to be destroyed in your quest for superiority? You cannot say can you? Of course not. You with your petty minds and insignificant problems…”
“What are you mumbling, cat?” Malachite asked, disdainfully.
“It’s not in any way part of your concern!” Garth snapped, harshly. “You wretched, small-minded human.” A gust of wind blew Malachite’s silver hair off his neck, and caused his navy-gray cape to bow and flutter. Garth hopped off the lip of the roof wall and padded across to the general. “We need to be on the lookout for the next target.”
“I am starting to lose what little confidence I had in you, cat.” Malachite announced. “We have been without food or sleep for three days and we don’t even have one of these three fractures you are looking for. Not to mention the Rainbow Crystal I’m in charge of finding.”
Garth was feeling particularly peeved at the human race, and turned on Malachite with a snarl. “What level of imbecile are you!?”
“What do you mean by that!?” Malachite demanded.
“You have the IQ of a dead rat and observation skills to match! Do you still honestly think that there is an eighth Rainbow Crystal!? The Rainbow Crystals were all gathered ages ago. Pulsar and Quasar saying that they found an eighth was just and excuse to look for the Crystal Fractures on Earth! That is our prime objective; to find the pieces of the Twilight Crystal and rejoin them! That is why this mission is so important, and why your mockery is not acceptable.”
Malachite was infuriated at first when Garth had insulted his intelligence, but once he had heard this new piece of information, his fury turned to rage. “Are you saying that you have kept me wandering this wretched planet for three days and there isn’t even a Rainbow Crystal!? When Beryl hears she’ll-“
“She’ll kill you for neglecting your duties.” Garth said with subtle content. “She doesn’t know. The whole deception was Kyanite’s plot to get Pulsar into power. Both of them have been trying to take control for years. Pulsar found the concept of the Twilight Crystal and its power, and Kyanite seized the opportunity. The reform of the Negaverse is at hand.”
“So now I’m not only dealing with a defect, I’m dealing with a REVOLUTIONARY!?!” Malachite cried. He put one hand to his head. “This is too much. My mind is going to explode.” He let his rage die down in his confusion. “So Beryl’s daughter has been plotting against her this entire time? And she and her husband are going to take over – but what is this you keep going on about? The Twilight Crystal?”
Garth was pleased with Malachite’s need to ask. Superiority was a satisfying thing. Think of it, him, a Chatlan, superior to a human. It was nearly too sweet. “The Twilight Crystal was the family treasure of the royalty of the Earth. The kings and queens of the planet passed it down for centuries, prizing it for the tremendous power it contained. But during the Negaverse-Universe war, it was shattered into three pieces and sent to Earth. The pieces embedded themselves in the minds of three human youths. Those pieces are the crystal fractures. And the hosts are who we’re trying to find.”
“We find them so that you can reconstruct this powerful crystal and overthrow the matriarchal rule of the Negaverse.” Malachite concluded. “I – I can’t stand for this! I am to sit idly by and watch you destroy the system I’ve fought my way to the top of and replace it with one you like better! I’m the head General! And the irony is that even though I know so much, I cannot go back and tell Queen Beryl lest she kill me for not completing my assignment.” He let out his frustration in a sigh and cast his steely eyes downward. “I am an insignificant fool.”
“That’s the idea.” Garth hissed. He swished his tail. “Now follow, you have little choice but to comply with my mission. Beryl’s watching, you know, watching only you. If you want to save your worthless life, then I suggest you become loyal to the reformation, and if you do well, maybe you will be appointed as head general of the new order.” He swished his tail and headed across the rooftops.
Malachite ran a hand through his silvery hair and followed. “Is it worth the trouble I’m going through now? My position or my life? I am beginning to think not.”

* * *

After about an hour at Raye’s, Olivia had decided that it was time to head home for dinner. With a quick goodbye she’d mounted her bike and headed off. Now, with storm clouds densely gathering, she was riding as fast as she could in the direction of home. The trip seemed longer now that the wind had picked up, and it was harder to keep balance as she steered through the gusts. Around the corners and down the streets she’d covered earlier the girl went. It was starting to drizzle. “Oh, great.”
The rain continued to blow harder and harder as she rode. When she turned to pass the park again, she turned straight into the front of the gale. The strong wind blew the rain in her face so that she could barely see. She was forced to get off her bicycle and walk. Even though the rain wasn’t too terribly strong, the wind made it hard to see. She squinted as she walked her bike up the street, telling herself that as soon as she turned the corner at the end, she would be out of the headwind, and then she could ride the rest of the way home. At least as long as she didn’t turn to ride against it again. Olivia walked until she came upon a three-way intersection across from the park entrance. The crosswalk light was red, and she had to stop. Cars rolled by, turning up the standing water with their wheels as they went. A strong gust of wind blew and ruffled the pleaded plaid skirt and vest of her Canon Elementary School uniform. It didn’t move her hair much because it was heavy and wet with rain. Her bangs were stuck to her face.
As she stood there, another girl, younger than her, came splashing along the crosswalk. “Oh, no! My dolls will get all wet!” She muttered, panicking. She ran bent over and at a break-neck pace, her brown-blonde hair hanging down over her eyes. In this condition, she didn’t see the biker standing at the corner and barreled straight into her.
“Whoa!”
“Whaa!” Olivia let out a cry of surprise as she found herself flying through the air. She skidded across the ground and skinned up her elbow and knee. Her bicycle landed on top of her. The girl who had hit her also came down, her dolls flying in all directions. She landed, draped over the tire of the bicycle with her face in a puddle.
She shook her head; water flying from her blonde-brown hair, then shot a blue-green eye around at the scene and hurriedly shoved herself up. “Oh! Ohmigosh! Oh I’m sorry!” She glanced from Olivia to the ground around her and began to desperately gather her dolls. “Oh, my dolls.” Then turning back to Olivia, she asked. “Are you alright?” The blue-green eyes flashed quickly to the scrapes on Olivia’s elbow and knee. “Oh my gosh! I hurt you! I’m so sorry!” She reached, threw the bike off Olivia, and, with one hand clutching her dolls close to her body, she helped her back to her feet. “I’m so sorry! I was looking at the ground, I didn’t see where I was going!”
Olivia lifted the foot of her injured leg off the ground and put her hand on her elbow. Her mind was still spinning from the collision. It had all happened so suddenly.
The other, shorter girl assumed a look of determination. “I know! I’ll take you to my house and take care of you! It’s the least I can do.” She yanked Olivia’s bicycle up from the ground. “Come on, this way!”
Olivia was still confused, and this girl moved so quickly from idea to idea that before she knew it, she was limping willfully home with her. It wasn’t far to the new girl’s house. She only lived a couple of blocks from the park. After hobbling her way along the sidewalks of Tenth Street for a couple minutes, and with the rain still coming down, Olivia found herself in front of a pleasant-looking townhouse complex. Her house was tall and thin. It made up one part of a larger building that held another, identical house. This complex was part of a line of thin houses that were all squished together along the road. The girl dropped Olivia’s bike by the door, and grabbed Olivia with her free hand.
“We’re here! Come on, come in, I’ll get you a towel and a Band-Aid, and maybe you can come up and see my room!” Olivia was towed out of the rain and into the house. “Come on! Come on!”
Inside, she found the house to be as thin on the inside as it looked on the outside. There was a stairwell in front of her that, undoubtedly lead to a thin second floor. The girl with brown-blonde hair yanked her through the thin sitting room, which held a couch and a television set. An open doorway led them into a slightly wider kitchen and dining area. There, the girl plopped Olivia down in one of the kitchen chairs, dropped her load of dolls on the table, and took off out of the room.
“I’ll be right back! You sit there!”
Olivia didn’t say anything, and sat surveying the room until the girl got back. The kitchen itself was small, with all the necessary appliances, but no room for extra ones. There seemed to be a shortage of cabinet space, because all the pots and pans were hanging on the walls in various places. The room was papered yellow, and there was a sliding glass door that led to a small fenced in backyard. The table she sat next to was covered in a picnic cloth. She looked at the dampened dolls on the table. To her surprise, they were all of her. There were at least five different pieces of Sailor Polaris merchandise on that table. There was what looked like a Barbie Polaris that made her look five times older than she actually was. There was an action figure made completely of plastic with joints in the arms and legs. There were also several other rag-doll like toys in various sizes; all of the dolls had long blonde hair, blue eyes, and wore light blue Sailor Soldier uniforms of a skirt, a sailor collar, boots, gloves, a choker and a tiara. Most of the dolls weren’t entirely accurate. One had given her the wrong boots, putting in high-heels instead of the knee-high pointed boots that she actually wore. Another had her chest bow purple instead of bright pink. She noticed mostly that the blue bows in the hair of the dolls were wrong in various ways. Some of them had the bows pulling back hair when it was actually pinned on with a clip, and others had them monstrously huge. Olivia prized herself on the smallness of her bow. She was wearing a red, navy, and white plaid one in her hair today to match her uniform.
The girl came running back with a first-aid kit and a beach towel over one arm. “Sorry I took so long! I’m usually faster, but I was thinking that how you’d hurt yourself on the sidewalk and all and I decided to find the Neosporin to put on it too so that you don’t get it infected or scarred or anything.”
Olivia stared blankly at the girl as she wrapped the beach towel around her and opened up a box of Band-Aids. “Um..”
“Oh! I’m sorry! I didn’t introduce myself.” The blonde-brown headed girl laughed. “My name is Summer, Summer Seasons. My Mom’s name is April and she was always the creative type, so when my last name was Seasons, she decided to call me Summer. Poetic isn’t it? My dad’s name is Frank Seasons, but it’s not as pretty as mine, don’t you think? But he lives forty minutes away. But anyway, what’s your name?”
“Olivia.” The blonde answered, as she watched Summer glob disinfectant on the Band-Aid before applying it to her knee.
“Nice to meet you, Olivia.” Summer grinned. “I like your hair.” She continued chattering as she finished up with her guest’s leg and started on her arm. “I always wanted long blonde hair. If I had hair like yours, then I would pull it up just like that, with a little bow in the back. That way I would look just like Sailor Polaris!”
“So you like Sailor Polaris?” Olivia asked.
“Yeah! She’s awesome! I have everything they’ve made about her! If I could have anything I’d want to be her.” Summer said, her blue-green eyes sparkling.
“You mean you’d want to actually be her?” Olivia asked.
“Oh yeah! She must have the most exciting life!” Summer said, standing up. Olivia checked on her elbow and knee and found them adequately bandaged. Summer kept talking. Apparently Olivia had started her on something. “Fighting crime, saving the world! It’s probably nothing but thrills and adventure. Plus she’s so pretty and she’s nearly my age!” She grabbed Olivia’s hand. “Come on, come up and see my room! I’ll show you all my Sailor Polaris stuff!” She took a minute to collect the dolls on the table and then headed out to the stairs, still chattering on. “Yeah, my life is boring. I have to go to school, and PSR, and homework, and all sorts of boring stuff, but Sailor Polaris, I bet she doesn’t have to do any of that stuff!”
‘I wouldn’t bet on it…’Olivia thought to herself.
Summer continued. “I have done everything to look as much as Sailor Polaris as I can! I even tried to dye my hair blonde! I tried to convince Mom to let me get blue-tinted contacts, but she wont let me.” Staring at the back of Summer’s head as they trekked up the stairs, Olivia noticed that she wasn’t really a blonde-brown, but her roots and tips were brown and the larger part of her hair was dyed blondish. “I figure I can get some when I’m old enough to get them myself. I want to get a tattoo of Polaris’s symbol on my ankle, too, but I haven’t told Mom yet.” She led them around the corner to a small room that practically glowed with Sailor Polaris’s light blue. “Well, here it is!”
Olivia gaped. It was a Sailor Polaris shrine! Summer had Sailor Polaris posters on her walls, Sailor Polaris sheets on her bed, her furniture was painted light blue, and she had Sailor Polaris paraphernalia covering every inch of every surface. She even had Sailor Polaris window curtains. Summer walked in and placed her dolls in various places around the room. Olivia stepped in almost timidly. ‘Wow! I’ve only been around a week, and they already have made all this stuff about me!? That’s both scary and amazing!’
“Look! I want to show you something!” Summer beckoned. Olivia walked over and sat on her bed next to her. Summer pulled out one of the light blue drawers in her light blue nightstand and produced a folder. Surprisingly, Sailor Polaris was on the front. After replacing the drawer, Summer opened the folder and revealed all of the drawings and fan letters she had accumulated. She pulled out one drawing of a stick Sailor Polaris, her hair like a carpet hanging from her head and her skirt sticking out around her stick body, and another stick person with brown hair standing next to her. “This is of Sailor Polaris and me.” Summer said proudly.
“Uh, wow!” Olivia said, as best she could. Being and artist herself, she was having trouble praising the work. “It looks…just like you.”
“Yeah, I know!” Summer glowed. “That’s my favorite. Oh, and here!” She pulled a Sailor Polaris rag doll off her pillow. “This one’s my favorite. I sleep with it at night.” The doll was nearly a foot tall with yellow-yarn hair. The bow was too large, but it was made of real ribbon. The doll was not wearing gloves or boots, but the uniform was nearly perfect. Summer handed it to Olivia and smiled, sincerely. “My Mom made it for me, I told you that she was the creative type.”
“This is amazing.” Olivia said. The face of the doll was incredibly cute. Its eyes were painted on, and its mouth was stitched on in pink thread. The tiara was felt that was sewed on the forehead. “It’s really well done. And it’s so cute! It looks exactly like me-I mean her!” Olivia shook her head. She couldn’t believe that she’d just let that slide.
“I know! I told Mom to be really careful with the face.” Summer said. “I think that Sailor Polaris is so pretty. And none of these commercial dolls look like her at all.” She took one of the action figures off the nightstand. “See, her eyes are wrong. They just used the Venus doll’s head and put a blue bow on it instead of red.”
“That’s cheap!” Olivia cried, taking it. “I’m insulted!”
“Me too! I take Sailor Polaris stuff really personally!” Summer agreed, putting the doll back. “When they get stuff wrong, I just have a fit!” Then her blue-green eyes lit up. “HEY! Do you want to come downstairs and see my Sailor Polaris video!?”
“You have a video!?” Olivia cried, shocked.
“Oh, yeah! I tape everything they say about Sailor Polaris on the news! Come on!” She hopped off the Sailor Polaris comforter and out the door. Olivia sprang up to follow. They raced down the thin stairs and into the narrow sitting room where Summer had turned on the TV. “Hurry up, it’s starting!”
Olivia sat down on the couch and Summer plopped down on the floor. The tape started. There was static, and then a newscaster came on. He was in mid-sentence. Olivia supposed that Summer had started recording as soon as she had heard Sailor Polaris’s name mentioned. The man was speaking. “-ris. For the longest time, Japan thought that they had only five Sailor Soldiers protecting them, but not so today. You’ve all seen this footage earlier, but we’ll play it again.” The desk and the news-castor disappeared and it was replaced with a very amateur-looking video of Sailor Polaris running down the street with a turquoise cat. Olivia remembered the moment. That was minutes after she’d transformed for the first time. Mooney the cat had given her her transformation pen and told her to go try out her new powers. At that point, they were following the smoke of a house fire. The billowing black smoke could be seen in the video. The announcer was talking over the footage. “This was a home video taken today of another Sailor who calls herself Polaris on her way to save a family who was trapped in a fire. This little girl is said to be only ten or eleven years old. There isn’t much known about her as of yet, except that she is courageous and devoted to saving people.” The camera was back on the news-castor. “What a sweet and kind little girl. And now the weather…Jan?”
There was more static and a different news-castor appeared at another set. It was apparently a different channel. This person, a woman, began her story, also in the middle of an idea. “Well, you all know about that fire on Sunday?”
“Yes,” Said her fellow anchor. “Didn’t that fire mark the appearance of another Sailor Soldier?”
“Yes, Dick, you are right.” The woman continued. “And believe it or not, we have more video of this Soldier that was released just today.” There was another transfer to home video that featured Sailors Mars and Mercury in the backyard of the burning building. Suddenly Sailor Polaris, her long blonde hair streaming behind her and her face smudged with smoke, burst out of the building with Sailor Moon right behind her. “This was taken by a neighbor who was on the scene and documents the presence of Sailor Polaris at the scene of the fire.” Olivia watched intently. She hadn’t seen this footage. That was at the point where she was chasing Malachite away from the fire. Immediately afterwards, she would meet Tuxedo Mask for the first time.
“Isn’t it great how Sailor Polaris saved all those people?” Summer beamed.
“Yeah.” Olivia agreed. This girl really loved her. Watching this film again, Olivia got to wondering. Where had Mooney gone? Was she killed in the fire? Somehow Olivia knew that she hadn’t been. She was a magic cat, she couldn’t die. All she did was stand there and a wand had appeared from nowhere; she had to have gotten out somehow.
“I’m going upstairs to get my doll!” Summer announced, hopping up. “I’ll be right back, okay?”
“K.” Olivia answered, staring blankly at the TV and blinking. She hadn’t thought about Mooney much lately. Her mind had been so filled with Evil Sailor Soldiers and Tuxedo Mask that she’d completely forgotten about the turquoise cat. ‘I need to ask Luna and Artemis about her. I wish I’d thought about it earlier.’
Summer clunked up the stairs, her shaggy discolored hair flying about her hair. She entered her light blue room and plodded over to the bed where her favorite doll laid out on the Sailor Polaris’s face. “Come on, Polaris!” Summer said, cheerily, holding the doll up. “Let’s go watch you on TV!” Behind her, she heard a scratching at the window. “What was that?” She turned and saw a cat on the other side of the glass. The cat twitched is tail and stared, nearly humanly at her. There was a crescent moon on its forehead. “Wow! A kitty! Sailor Polaris had a kitty on the news! If I have a kitty, then that’s another way that I would be like her!” Summer said. She opened the window and stood face to face with the cat.
The cat’s lips curled back in a smile. It was a contented, superior looking expression. Its yellow eyes glinted, pupil-less. The moon on its head was inverted, and bright orange. He leaped off the windowsill, and into the room, every muscle visible under his navy blue coat. It was Garth. “Mew.”
“Hello, kitty!” Summer squealed. “Ooo! I’ve always wanted a cat! I’ll call you…Sailor Cat! Oh, that’s perfect!”
“My name is Garth.” Garth said, with a scowl. “And I will go by nothing other than that.”
“You talk!?!” Summer cried, delighted. “Wow! I bet that Sailor Polaris has a talking cat! She’s got everything!”
“You are a naive little girl.” Garth said. “I like that.” He swished his tail. “Tell me, little girl, do you feel like you are broken?”
“Huh?”
“Do you feel empty, incomplete, are you missing something?” Garth decided to take a different approach. “Are you happy, little girl?”
“Yes.” Summer answered. Then she thought a second. “Well, most of the time.”
“When are you not happy?” Garth asked.
“I don’t like it when I’m at school, or doing my homework, or places where I’m bored.” Summer answered. “My life is so average. I’m bored all the time. Nothing cool happens.”
“Does that make you feel like you are missing something?”
“Yeah.” Summer nodded. “Yeah, it does. I feel like I’m missing out on so much. I want to be a cool superhero! I want to have adventures and fight evil!” Stars shone in her eyes.
“Really? So what would make you’re life complete? What would make you whole, child?” Garth asked, fully practiced in his routine now.
“Hmm..” Summer thought. “What would make me complete? Well, what I want most in the entire world is to be Sailor Polaris and be pretty and go on cool adventures. Then I wouldn’t be bored.”
He glanced quickly around the room. “So you like Sailor Polaris, do you?”
“Umhm!” Summer nodded. “She’s my favorite person in the whole world!”
Garth grinned. “What if I told you that you could be Sailor Polaris?”
Summer’s eyes went wide. “What!? REALLY! For real!?”
“Yes.” Garth lied. “For real…” He reached into his zero space storage pocket, and brought out his black velvet bag. “in this bag I have the one thing that will make you whole. I can turn you into Sailor Polaris, but that has to be, honestly, the one thing that would make you complete.”
“Oh, it is! It is!” Summer nodded. “I hate being plain old me! I have had dreams that I could be Sailor Polaris! Please let me be her!”
“Alright.” Garth said, undoing the knot. “I have just the pen for you.” He reached in with his teeth and grabbed out a transformation wand. The body of the pen-like wand was a dark aqua looking color, and the black metal cap had an ornament on the top. The symbol on this ornament was of an eight-pointed star, Polaris’s symbol. The star had a double-X running though it. He dropped it into Summer’s hand.
“Is this what Sailor Polaris uses to become Sailor Polaris?” Summer asked. “It’s got her symbol on it…but what’s with the ‘X’-?” She stopped as the star at the top of the pen began to glow white. From the lines of the symbol leaked currents of black smoke. The fumes hung in the air and floated around Summer’s head. They seemed to hypnotize her, and she sat, frozen as the fog floated into her head. Suddenly she let out a cry. “DARK DELPHINUS!”

Down on the first floor, Olivia heard the cry. “What was that?” She looked up at the ceiling. “It sounded like what we say to transform. Polaris Power. Dark Delphinus. But why would Summer yell that?” Then her mind snapped back to just minutes before; “Yeah, my life is boring. I have to go to school, and PSR, and homework, and all sorts of boring stuff, but Sailor Polaris, I bet she doesn’t have to do any of that stuff!” and then; “If I could have anything, I would want to be just like her.” “Oh my gosh!” Olivia’s blue-hazel eyes went wide. “Summer’s a target! But how’d I miss it!? I’ve got to hurry and save her!” She yanked out the magic transformation pen Mooney the cat had given her just days before. It was nearly routine now. “POLARIS POWER!”

Summer was encased in a hemisphere of dark, blackish aqua. Hot purplish white lightning flashed behind her. Her skin faded to a mess of aqua, purple, and black, and her shoulder-length hair was whipped around her face in an unbelievably powerful wind. The dome around her seemed alive with dark magic. Living tendrils shot out from the walls like ligaments and connected Summer to the tremendous power that was encased in the walls. She moved, and the stretches of seemingly organic strips wrapped themselves tightly around her. They covered every inch of her, smothering her in their dark magic. She was like a pupa, a caterpillar encased in a living cocoon, and like a caterpillar, inside her casing, incredible changes were taking place. Another flash of the violet-white energy streaked around the inside of the dome. The hot electricity stripped the sides, and detached the girl from the walls. The powerful wind inside the dome whipped the frayed ends of the ribbons so fast that they were a blur. As she floated in the squall, another bolt of lightning wrapped itself around her. It entered her open eyes, and brought them to life with a purple glow. The volts of the lighting raced across her skin and turned the bindings into dust. What was left on her body was a uniform resembling those on every piece of Sailor Soldier paraphernalia in her room. The skirt and collar were the blackish aqua that colored the walls. The bows on her chest and back were black. Her boots each had an eight-pointed star on the front. With more lightning flashing behind her, she started her monologue. “I awaken! Sailor Delphinus! The North Star! The clustered constellation! I guide the paths you travel! I am either triumphal victory or a cold and bitter death! I am Sailor Polaris! I am WHOLE!”

The dome around her shattered into nothing. Sailor Delphinus cast her blue-green eyes around the bedroom. “This is all mine. They have made all this for me?”
“Yes,” Garth hissed, pleased, “yes human, its all for you. Give into your desire and surrender your Crystal Fracture!”
“Leave her alone!”
“Who is that!?” Delphinus spun around and saw the only Sailor Soldier that could match the colors of the bedroom perfectly.
Olivia stood, fully transformed in the doorway. “How dare you assault my fan! She has nothing for you! I’m going to give you what you deserve for disturbing pure idol worship! I’m Sailor Polaris! And I have to protect those who seek my protection.”
“You are not Sailor Polaris!” Sailor Delphinus cried. “I am Sailor Polaris!”
“Are not!” Polaris shot back. “You don’t even look like me!”
“She is Sailor Polaris, maggot!” Garth cried. “Sailor Delphinus, to be exact, but her desire was to be you! So that is what she is! And now you’d better run!” Garth shot his yellow eyes to the girl at his side. “Delphinus! She’s impersonating you! Go stop her from disgracing your name as Sailor Polaris!”
“Don’t worry! I take my dignity very personally.” Sailor Delphinus said. Polaris’s jaw dropped. Sailor Delphinus picked up the homemade Sailor Polaris doll that sat on her bed. When she had touched it, black energy shot like a wave from her hand, and turned it into a perfect replica of Sailor Polaris, complete with boots, gloves, choker and tiara. The face changed, the eyes were no longer cute and hand-painted, and the mouth was no longer stitched carefully. It was changed to a printed face. The doll was actually sneering at her, it looked mischievous and ready to make trouble. Sailor Delphinus picked up the doll and thrusting it at Polaris, cried. “Polaris Power NOW!”
Polaris stood, stunned as an all-too-familiar spinning icicle flew in her direction. She jumped back and the floor where she’d stood turned to solid ice. “Wha!?! How’d she get off doing something like that!?”
“Like I said, maggot! Run! Run for your life! Because she won’t stop until you have stopped this charade!” With that, Garth erupted into a horrible fit of laughter that followed Sailor Polaris down the stairs and out the door. Sailor Delphinus was in hot pursuit, sending icicles whenever she could, toward the escaping Soldier.
“Summer! Summer please! You love me!” Polaris cried as she headed out into the driving rain. “Stop trying to kill me!”
“Imposter!” Delphinus cried. “I am Sailor Polaris! Stop pretending to be me!” She thrust the doll forward again and another icicle flew through the rain and hit a parked car, freezing it with a thin layer of ice.
“I’m not the imposter! You are!” Polaris called over her shoulder. “Whaa!” She ducked to dodge another icicle.
“LIES! LIER AND IMPOSTER!”
“Oops, shouldn’t have said that.” Polaris said, turning the corner. “I can’t hurt her, she’s an innocent girl!”
“IMPOSTER!” Another icicle flew from behind the fleeing Soldier and hit the side of a building, plastering a great chunk of it in ice.
“LUNA!!!” Polaris cried. “ARTEMIS!!!! SAILOR MOON! HEEELLLLPP!!!”

* * *

Zoicite sat alone in the great hall late at night. Beryl had left for bed hours ago, after giving the court a very long spiel about Malachite and how long it was taking him to do his job. Zoicite had tried to defend him. “But he’s only been gone three days!” She’d said. “He’s concerned about making you proud.” “He’ll get the job done, I have confidence in him.” Beryl wouldn’t listen, she was having too much fun bashing him. It hurt Zoicite to listen to her talk about her lover like that. She let out a sigh that echoed around the empty room. “What is he doing? Has he found the crystal yet? Will he come back victorious, or will he die the next time he stands in this room?”
Suddenly a boot step was heard throughout the hall. It was followed by another and another. They belonged to a pair of heavy, deep treaded boots.
Her head snapped up. “Who’s there!?”
“Not much of a greeting,” a man’s voice answered, “not for the heir to the kingdom, anyway.”
“Sir Quasar!” Zoicite jumped up when she heard his voice. “I’m sorry, sire, I didn’t know that it was you.”
“At ease.” Quasar continued into the room, his thick gray boots breaking the silence again and again with their echoes. He looked to her with his only eye, as she sat back down on the base of a column. “What are you doing here this late at night, talking to yourself?”
“I’m sorry sir, I’ll leave.” Zoicite said, beginning to get to get up again.
He reached out a deeply tanned hand from behind his back and signaled for her to stay. “I was merely asking a question.”
She turned to look up at him, her orange ponytail falling off her shoulder. “I, I was wondering.” She answered.
“About what?”
Why’d his voice sound so sincere? He was supposed to be an heir to Beryl. No one was nice around here, why was he? She toyed with the idea of relating everything to him. “Wondering…about someone.”
“That general who’s missing? Malachite?” Quasar prodded. He put his hands on the hips of his black pants. It was true that he’d fallen for Chrysoberyl, Evil Queen Beryl’s daughter, but he really was a softie at heart. Only for innocence, however. If this woman was caught vandalizing instead of worrying, he wouldn’t have thought twice about killing her. A man of extremes, Quasar was.
Zoicite felt awkward, and crossed her arms over her knees. “Y…Yes.”
“I thought so.” Quasar squatted down next to her. She shot her eyes to his. He had one deep brown one and the other was glazed white with blindness. She found herself tracing the long scar the stretched down his face with her eyes. Quasar shifted weight a little so that his squatting didn’t make him fall over. “Is he special to you?”
It was late, she was tired, she was sick with worry for Malachite’s life, and the question completely broke her. “Yes! He means the world to me! I can’t stand the thought of him being killed! Especially not by Beryl, the disgrace alone would kill him! Me too!”
“Shhh…you’re shouting.” Quasar warned. “You are not supposed to be here so late at night, if someone hears you, you’ll be punished.”
“Why aren’t you punishing me?” Zoicite asked. Somehow she felt like having her deepest feelings and well-kept secrets wrenched slowly out of her by a superior officer was punishment enough.
“Call me a sucker for hard-luck cases.” Quasar answered with a shrug of his burly shoulders. “And don’t worry. Garth is the closest friend I’ve ever had. He will make sure your man does what he’s supposed to.”
“Really?” Zoicite asked, skeptically.
“What? Don’t you trust my word?” Quasar asked.
“No, that’s not it.” Zoicite assured. “It’s just that Malachite has never been looking for Rainbow Crystals before, that’s my job! If Beryl wanted it done she should have sent me! I think that she just has it in for him. He thinks so, too.” She turned her face away when she realized how much she had said. “I’m, I’m scared for him.”
“Well, I’ll talk to Beryl.” Quasar said, standing.
She stared, disbelieving up at him. “You will?”
“Sure, why not. I’ll ask her what her deal is. If she has it in for your man I’ll tell you.”
“Really!? Y-you will?”
He made an impatient face and nodded. “Now get back to your quarters.”
“R-right.” She shoved herself up and turned to leave, but quickly turned back and bowed. “Thank you Sir! Thank you!”
“Hurry and get going.” He said. She took off out of the great hall and he turned to leave the way he had come. “Beryl’s got it in for that Malachite, eh? Well, she won’t be messing with our mission. No, not this early.” He clomped his way back to his own quarters where his wife, Pulsar was waiting.
“And where were you?”
“I ran into that general Zoicite in the great hall.” Quasar replied.
Pulsar looked up from where she was reading a book in her nightdress. “Really? Why’d you do that?”
“Chry, don’t look at me like that, she’s no competition with you.” Quasar assured. She cast him a smirk and he laughed. “You get jealous so easily.”
“It’s easy when I’ve got such a warm-hearted, hunk of a husband.” Pulsar said, folding closed her book. “Now what did you learn?”
He climbed over her and laid out on the bed, his tan arms behind his head. “I learned some interesting stuff. As it ends up, Zoicite just happens to be the girlfriend of that missing general, Malachite.”
“Really?” Pulsar asked, unenthusiastically. “Why is that important?”
“Well, she says that Malachite wasn’t equipped for this job.” He answered. “That he’d never gone after Rainbow Crystals before. She seems to think that your mother just happens to have it in for him.”
“I wouldn’t put it past her.” Pulsar said, disdainfully. “My mother is a witch. She also likes to play with her food before she eats it.”
“Well, that’s why we’re overthrowing her, right?” Quasar asked.
“Exactly.”
“But anyway, it’s terribly important that we keep that general out there looking while Garth is. I mean, Garth is good, but he’s not a magician. He needs time to find all these fractures. If Beryl knocks off Malachite, then we’ll have to delay looking for a while.”
“We can’t afford that.” Pulsar said. “I’ll talk to her.”
“And tell me if she actually has it in for this guy.” Quasar added, getting up and taking off his v-neck shirt. “I promised that other general I’d tell her if she was.”
Pulsar rolled her eyes. “Kyanite, you are so soft!”
“Yeah, I guess.”
Then Pulsar smiled up to him, a very sincere and loving look that completely changed her face from cold beauty to warm radiance. Her green eyes were less shallow when she looked at him that way. “But, Ky, you know that’s why I married you.”
“Love you too, honey.”

* * *

Polaris dashed into Raye’s room at the Hino Shrine and slammed the sliding door shut behind her. She stood bracing it with her back and panting.
“Olivia!” Amy cried. Luckily none of the others had left yet.
“Sailor Polaris!” Luna corrected. “What’s wrong! You look like you’re in trouble.”
“I am I am!” Polaris nodded quickly, water dripping from her hair and uniform. “There’s an-“ she panted a couple times, trying to get the whole sentence out, “- an evil me after me!”
“A what!?” Raye and Serena chorused.
“Did you say an evil you?” Mina asked, cookie crumbs all over her face.
Polaris nodded desperately.
“How? What happened?” Lita asked.
Panting made retelling difficult, and her explanation was littered with various hand gestures. “I was riding…and there was this girl…and then boom…and she took me…and we went to house…and Sailor Polaris world….and then we…watched the TV…and DARK DELPHINUS…and then WHAM!…and I was here.” Everyone stared blankly at her. “Oh okay, I’ll try again…I was riding…” There was a crash from outside and the door suddenly froze over behind her. “WAHH! Run!” She jumped from the doorway and ran over the table and out the door on the other side of the room. She stopped in the doorway. “Run guys! Run! Run! Run!”
Just then the iced door was kicked in, causing frozen dust to fall from the frame. Through the cloud of powder they could see the silhouette of a girl holding a doll. She stood menacingly for a second before crying. “Kill the Imposter!!!” She threw the doll around in the air, sending icicles flying around at the walls and furniture. The other girls jumped up and ran screaming from the room with Delphinus on their tails.
Malachite and Garth came galloping up, both soaked. Malachite had Garth on his shoulder as he stepped through the ruined door, his long silver hair sticking to his face. “Whoa, this one packs a punch.”
“Yes!” Garth cried, triumphantly. “It has to be her! She has to have a crystal fracture! Look at the power she has!” Malachite slipped on a patch of ice that coated the floor just inside Raye’s bedroom. He caught himself on the door-less frame and Garth jumped off. “Come on, let’s hurry and catch up to her! The chase is exhilarating!”
“Easy for you to say! You have four legs.” Malachite said, struggling to regain balance in his awkward position. “And all I can say is that this better be a carrier or else, cat, I’m having far too much trouble with this.”
“Hurry up, human, we’ve got to go get her! She’s using her power so much, it may be any minute!”
Malachite struggled across the ice patch and made sure to avoid others as they made their way down the temple halls. Everywhere around them, there were patches of ice on the floor, walls, and ceiling. Up ahead, everyone was running madly from Sailor Delphinus as she shot icicles at them. Polaris was in the lead with Serena close behind. “Olivia!!! How’d she come along!?”
“Her name’s Summer, and she thinks she’s me! She wants to kill me because I’m an imposter pretending to be her. It’s really confusing. The point is, I couldn’t hurt her because I know who she really is!”
“That’s not gonna stop me from hurting her!” Lita cried. She stopped and turned to the oncoming Soldier. Sailor Delphinus ran straight for Lita, throwing random icicles around the hallway. When the two met, Lita nailed her with a well-placed blow to the gut. She toppled over onto the floor, her doll sliding on an ice patch toward the rest of the girls.
“I’ll get it!” Mina ran up and slipped on the same patch of ice. Her feet flew out from under her and she skidded along on her butt toward Lita and Delphinus, kicking and screaming the whole way. She ran into the Evil Sailor Soldier butt-to-head and the two of them flew off down the hall together like that. Lita watched them go, dumbfounded.
The doll came to a stop at Serena’s feet just as the two skaters slammed into a wall off down the way. Delphinus stood up, tearing and rubbing her head. “That wasn’t funny! That really hurt!”
“You hurt! I landed on my butt!” Mina cried.
“I’ve got the doll.” Serena announced, bending down. “She can’t do anything without this.”
“Serena don’t!” Luna cried, but it was too late. The minute Serena had picked up the doll, it shook in her hand and threw a spiraling icicle right into her face. She froze over in a casing of ice, still holding the doll.
“Oh my gosh!” Amy cried. She jumped away from Serena’s side, surprised by the sudden attack. “Luna, how’d you know that was going to happen?”
“It was the doll that was emitting the ice.” Luna said. “It wasn’t the soldier! From what you’ve told me, it only made sense that the object was the only dangerous thing about the dark Sailor Soldiers.”
“Raye, transform and melt Serena so that she can transform and heal this kid when she self-destructs!” Lita said.
“Good idea.” Raye nodded. She got out her pen. “MARS POWER!”

Raye was surrounded by her magic red demi-globe. Inside a wildfire was blazing. She was surrounded with her element and the magic in it transformed her into Sailor Mars. The flames vanished and left her wearing her red suit with purple chest bow and red pumps. She posed and the transformation was complete.

Amy turned to Artemis. “Should the rest of us transform too?”
“No, I don’t think it’s necessary.” The white cat answered. “And I know I’m tired of watching you do it, so let’s just stick with the ones we need.”
Sailor Mars warmed up her fire attack. Within the Ice case, Serena’s eyes darted frantically back and forth, scared to death of what Mars was about to do to her. She put her hands together, fire forming at her fingertips. “Fire, SOUL!” A flame-thrower type attack blasted poor Serena and the ice began to melt.
Around the corner, Garth and Malachite were making their way to where Delphinus and Mina sat crying. Garth was in a state of near ecstasy. “We’re almost there! It’s almost time! We’ll have it!”
He and Malachite were suddenly forced to stop when out of nowhere, Tuxedo Mask, in his red cape, white mask and top hat leapt in front of them. “Stop!”
“Yow!” Malachite jumped with the surprise of having him suddenly appear, and his feet slipped out from under him. He landed on his back in front of Tuxedo Mask. “Where’d you come from!?!”
“Never mind! What are you doing assaulting little girls and having them turn themselves inside out!? That’s not how I was taught to find Rainbow Crystals.” Tuxedo Mask demanded.
Suddenly a bright white light lit the hall behind Tuxedo Mask. Garth’s yellow eyes went wide. “This is it.”
“AHHH!” Mina let out a horrified scream as Delphinus’s essence began to exit her body through her neck.
“Oh no! Summer!” Sailor Polaris rushed forward without thinking. She slipped and slid all the way down to join Mina at the end of the hall. Tuxedo Mask whirled around and ended up on his own behind. Sailor Mars watched as she kept a steady torch on Serena, who was melting rather unevenly. Garth climbed up to stand on Tuxedo Mask’s stomach. Tuxedo Mask and Malachite exchanged glances.
The same sequence of events that occurred with the other Dark Soldiers when they lost their essence happened to Sailor Delphinus. All the color, even the false color, drained from her hair and the blue-green vanished from her eyes. Her skin went waxily pale and the light coming from her neck became mixed with the hues that were sucked from her. When the essence escaped, it turned into a ghost-like entity that began to float around the hallway. The lamps blew out, and the light bulbs shattered, the light and color from these energy sources gathering in the essence spirit. Sailor Delphinus was left frozen on the ground, looking like she was made of candle wax. Sailor Polaris glanced around as Summer’s ghost weaved its way around the ceiling. She looked to Mina, who hadn’t blinked since her initial scream. Her eyes looked down the hall to Tuxedo Mask. Somehow, his presence made the situation better, but the dumbstruck, frightened, look on his face made it worse again. She looked down the hall to the other four girls and the cats. Mars’s melting was coming along steadily except that the essence was sucking up most of the energy from the flame before it even reached Serena.
Artemis looked to her. “Hurry, we need Serena to heal her before her essence escapes.”
“I’m sorry! It’s not my fault!” Sailor Mars insisted. “It’s the stupid essence!”
“Essence isn’t stupid, Raye.” Amy said.
Just then, the spirit essence made an about face and shot off down the hall over the four girls’ heads. When the essence left, the whole crew was left in the dark. Artemis hung his head. “Ahh, no!”
“What do we do now?” Lita asked.
“We have to go catch it and bring it back.” Luna said. “I don’t know how, but it’s much too far away to be sucked back into her body now. We have to catch it before it gets outside.”
“It’s a good thing that it’s raining, all the windows will be closed.” Sailor Mars said. “Fire, SOUL.” She turned the burner back on Serena, who was emerging from the ice.
“Come on, girls, lets go catch that ghost!” Luna said, bounding off into the dark. Sailor Polaris and Mina shoved themselves up and slip-slided their way back up the hall.
Tuxedo Mask was ready to follow, except that he had a cat on his chest. Garth seemed to forget that he was there when he hung his head and closed his eyes. “I can’t believe it wasn’t there. We will have to try again.”
“Again!?” Malachite demanded. “Cat! If you are saying that we’ve failed again”
Tuxedo Mask felt the cat bound off him. “Come, we will try again.”
Malachite slipped and slid away with Garth and Tuxedo Mask shoved himself up. He decided to follow the general instead of joining the ghost hunt. Down the other hall, however, the chase was on! It was Sailor Polaris, Lita, Amy, Mina and Artemis verses a swiftly roaming essence cloud. Luna and Mars had stayed behind with Serena, who really had no choice. The others were having a time of chasing Summer’s essence around the temple. It moved very fast along the ceiling of the passageways, sucking up light and breaking bulbs as it went. They were nearly out of breath, and were finally able to stop when the ghost entered the fire chamber. The chamber was home to a gigantic, blazing hearth where Raye would go to read fire, and the essence was having a great time sucking up the energy from the flames.
“Okay, so how do we get it?” Polaris asked.
“Just grab the end, I guess.” Mina answered.
Amy shook her head. “No, that won’t work. It’s a cloud, you can’t grab a cloud.”
“The how do you think we should do it?” Lita asked Amy, who’d wandered to a table on the side of the room. She pulled a drawer out of the front of the table and held it up for the others to see. “We can get it in this. The cloud cannot get through wood.”
“Great! Give it here!” Lita cried. She trotted over, took the drawer, and stood on the table. Leaning over the fire, she tried to catch the ghost with quick waving motions. “Come here, you little essence! Come to Momma! Come on!”
The essence cloud floated around the flames of the fire, drinking up the energy like hot soup. It kept getting bigger and more colorful the more fire it consumed. Lita waved at it feebly with the drawer, but it remained out of reach.
“Would you guys help me out here?”
“Uh, sure.” The other girls surrounded the bonfire and tried to fan the cloud toward Lita. The essence paused in midair, and then, nearly in defiance, shot from the room through the door it had come in by. The girls groaned and chased after it. It was still moving away from its body, through the hallways of the shrine. Working with Amy’s idea of catching it in something, the girls began to grab whatever they thought might serve as containers to capture the essence in as the passed them in the halls.
When the ghost entered a large prayer chamber, the girls were prepared to capture it using a flowerpot, a trashcan, a shoebox, and a very large Tupperware container. “Come on, girls,” Lita said, focused, “lets do this.” With that, the four of them began running around the room, waving their containers in the air.
Artemis shook his head at the sight. “I never thought we’d stoop to this level.”
The essence ghost was headed toward Mina and her flowerpot. “Ooo! I got it! I got it!” She swooped with the pot and captured most of it within the confines of the terra cotta. She quickly put the pot top-down on the floor to keep it in. “I did it!”
“Hurray!” Everyone jumped up and down. “Alright Mina!”
She made a peace sign and grinned. “That’s me!” As she stood there, swelling with pride, the glowing white essence sifted its way out of the hole in the bottom of the pot. She watched it trickle out. “Oh drat! I forgot about the hole!”
Polaris hit herself in the head with her Tupperware as the essence returned to floating about the room. “Mina…”
Lita shook her head and shrugged. “Oh my gosh.”
“Come on, girls, hurry up and get it before it gets too big.” Artemis cried, bringing them back to the task at hand. The essence was heading toward the end of the room where the sliding doors were. Everyone went chasing after it. Amy was closest, running with the lid of her shoebox in one hand and the body in the other, ready to snatch the ghost out of the air. Unfortunately she caught her foot under one of the mats and crashed headlong into the door. It was knocked off its runners and the garden became visible. The essence darted toward the open door.
“Oh no!” Mina fretted.
“Don’t let it get outside!” Artemis cried. “If it gets out we’ll never catch it!”
Polaris thought fast. “North Star Power, NOW!” She hurled her own spiraling icicle toward the door, attempting to freeze it closed. Instead, when it hit the frame, it just coated the open door in a layer of ice. “Dang!”
The essence left the building and shot though the rain and across the yard. Tuxedo Mask was chasing Malachite and Garth out another door in a perpendicular hallway. Malachite glanced over his shoulder as they ran and Garth quickly opened up a portal. Once the two of them were through, it closed, and Tuxedo Mask skidded to a stop. He looked up as the glowing essence made a beeline toward his head. The four girls stuck their heads out of the icy doorway and looked on, horrified. In one swift motion, Tuxedo Mask yanked off his large top hat and turned the opening toward the essence. The ghost shot straight into the hat, and he turned and pressed the opening to his chest. The girls all let out a joyful cry and ran to him as he looked, confused, from them to the hat and back.
Sailor Polaris jumped up and down, her wet hair flapping like a sheet. “You got it! You got it! I can’t believe it! You’re the best!”
“Artemis!?” Luna was at the sliding door that Tuxedo Mask had entered the yard through. Sailor Mars was behind her with the statue-like Delphinus. Sailor Moon was transformed, her teeth still chattering, and her lips blue.
“We’ve got it!” Artemis called, triumphantly back.
Luna grinned. “Great! Hurry, Sailor Moon, heal this girl before it gets away again!”
“Wh-wh-what-t-ever you s-s-say.” Moon chattered. Mars put the stiff little soldier on the wet grass and Sailor Moon took out her Moon wand. “M-M-Moo-oo-n Hea-Heal-l-l-in-ing, ACT-I-VATION-N!” Despite the shaky delivery, the white Moon magic still came from the wand and entered the hole at Delphinus’s throat. Tuxedo Mask freed the essence from his hat, and it was sucked, spiraling, back into its body. Summer’s sailor suit vanished and the color returned to her skin. Lights came back on along the halls of the temple, and Sailor Polaris let out a sigh as the rain began to let up.

* * *

When the rain stopped, around 7 o’clock, Sailor Polaris had returned Summer to her house. The door had been left open, so she’d walked in and laid her out on the couch in the sitting room. Summer’s eyes opened. “Wha? What happened?”
“You were kidnapped.” Sailor Polaris smiled. “I saved you!”
Summer’s groggy eyes suddenly sprang open with excitement. “SAILOR POLARIS!?!?!?”
“That’s me!” The soldier grinned.
“WOW! You actually saved me!?” She sprang up to a sitting position on the couch. “I don’t believe it!”
“Believe it.” Polaris replied. “I just stuck around to see if you were okay. I have to go now.”
“No, wait!” Summer looked frantically around the room. She spotted her homemade doll on the coffee table. Olivia had thought enough to bring it with her when she’d left to return Summer to her house. Now, the blonde-brown haired girl grabbed it off the table with a pen and pressed it toward the soldier. “Will you sign it!? Please?”
“Sure.” Polaris took the pen and signed the doll on the white leotard.
Then, taking it back, Summer read aloud what she had written. “Dear Summer, you are a very special person, I will always think of you as my biggest fan! Live your life the best you can with all you have, Sailor Polaris.” She looked up, her eyes sparkling. Sailor Polaris couldn’t help but smile widely as well. Summer nodded vigorously. “I will, Sailor Polaris! I will! This is the best day of my life!”

~To Be Continued~

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