Sailor Heart & Eclipse sailorheart@hotmail.com Soulsower Chapter 5 Ah, my powers are increasing! Soon, all the energy I'll ever need will be within my grasp! I don't want you to hurt them. Drain them if you must, but please... don't... don't hurt them. Hurt them? Of course I won't hurt them. Their energy will be mine and we will control this entire planet. I wouldn't dream of hurting them. Why don't I believe that? * * * Standing outside the Cherry Hill Temple, Haley, the others and I, minus Amy of course, were talking about the previous day's events. The incident before school seemed almost non-existent given the heat that was raised in the events of the previous evening. "You could have gotten us killed! We could have gotten that beast out of the area with that ambulance. That family you saw would have been fine. But no, you've gotta come in all important and defeat it yourself." I was not a happy person. I looked at Lita who was nursing a small cut and bruise from the flying debris during Haley's attack. "I promised myself that I would protect every innocent person that was threatened by the Negaverse! I..." Haley started but was quickly cut off by Lita. "So you're gonna hurt your own team members to that end, huh? It doesn't work that way here, kiddo. Maybe you should go back to where ever you came from and leave the fighting to us!" Raye was taken aback by that. It hurt her to see her best friends tear into her lover as we were, but neither Lita nor I could see the damage we were doing. "Listen, any innocent hurt by the Negaverse is one innocent too many. At least I was doing something to protect the people." "I'm starting to get a little tired of the holier than thou' routine, Haley." Lita said snarkily. "It all comes down to what you want, doesn't it? You want to save innocents, you want to defeat the Negaverse, you want everything for you and you alone!" Haley ignored that little piece of information, conveniently I thought, to continue to dump on me. "What would the ambulance have done? It would have hit the lizard all right, but what about after that? Who knows how many lives would have been lost and people injured from flying wreckage after it had fallen to the ground? That's not the way to..." "You want to tell me how to fight?! I'll tell you how to fight. You take your fist and you plunge it into your enemy!" I was so enraged that I turned and plowed my fist into a fairly thick plaster wall, burying it in about a foot. "That would have been what's left of your enemy! Don't you ever tell me how to fight!" With that, I grabbed Lita, who was a little shocked at the display, and we both quickly headed towards the car. "We're outta here. Let us know when you want to do something for anybody other than yourself." I spat at Haley. We were in the car and off before any of the others could say anything. More fitting,' I thought. `Let it sink in for a bit'. That didn't mean that there weren't any reactions. * * * "W...wow." Serena was justifiably shocked. She was frightened - possibly at the suddenness of our departure, or the display that preceded it. "Stubborn creatures!" Haley snarled under her breath. Darien, who was at Serena's side, was not happy. "I oughta take him aside and beat the..." Raye looked at him as he started that sentence. Darien noticed and finished in a softer tone. "... crap out of him. He had no right." Darien gritted his teeth. He was angry. He wanted to strike out. His frustration about his injuries were mounting. He wanted to rip the cast off and get back into some action, but he knew Serena wouldn't let him. Mina was the most dramatic, of course. She fainted. Raye caught her. And with some water brought to her by Chad, she managed to revive her. Mina's beautiful blue eyes fluttered open. Regaining her composure, she felt a bit embarrassed. "Sorry about that. I guess it was too much of a shock." "I know you didn't mean that, Adrian," said Raye softly, almost to herself. "If Haley won't, I forgive you." Haley overheard this and looked fondly down upon Raye, but otherwise remained stone cold. * * * Dinner time. You just drained that girl yesterday. I need more power, Kyanite. You must get it for me. Fine, there is no use fighting you anyway, is there? You learn well. Now, there is a couple just brimming with energy. I shall have a feast. The man and his wife never saw the tiger until it was too late... * * * Amy's computer was doing it's version of a laser light show. A special alarm she had devised to monitor any Negaverse activity was going wild. "Time to get into action, guys." reported Amy in a whisper as not to draw any suspicion from the nurses that walked by. "Let's go." commanded Raye. "Amy, send us the co-ordinates when you have them, all right?" "You got it. Get it for Darien and I!" Amy cheered her friends on. The scouts and Haley were in the parking lot of the hospital when Amy started feeding them the location of the beast. "It's near the arcade. The one Andrew works at. I'll see if I can use my computer to monitor you guys and I'll call Adrian and Lita." Amy transmitted the data. As the girls neared the arcade, they stopped briefly to transform. As the four shimmers of light dissipated, Sailor Moon spotted a very large tiger. "That must be it." she pointed at it. "It's another cat demon. Only it's a lot bigger than before." "Yeah, and you remember what damage the last one did." noted Venus. "Still, we've gotta fight it." replied Mars. "I just hope that Amy got through to Sailor Heart and Sailor Jupiter." "Hmmph." Eclipse grunted to herself. "Well, enough of this standing around. Let's get to it." cried Sailor Moon as she leapt in front of the tiger. "Alright whisker-face. You're about to become moon dust. I am Sailor Moon! Champion of justice. On behalf of the moon, I will right wrongs and triumph over evil, and that means you!" Sailor Moon never even noticed the tiger leaping onto her. It roared in her face and tried to swipe her with its claws. Luckily, Sailor Moon had the presence of mind to grab both paws and tried to roll over on top of this monster cat. "Mars Fire..." "Venus Crescent Beam..." "Ignite!" "Smash!" The tiger glowed in the blaze as it screamed in pain and was stunned by the Crescent Beam. Still it was not defeated. The tiger leapt up and came crashing down on Mars and Venus successfully knocking both girls out. "Nooooooooo!" cried a voice audible only to the tiger. "You said you wouldn't hurt them anymore!" The tiger ignored the voice inside its head. Sailor Moon and Eclipse were the only two left. He stalked toward the fallen Sailor Moon with Eclipse by her side. Eclipse had her best defensive face on, but there was a small amount of fear in her eyes too. As the tiger crossed over a sewer, the manhole cover blew off and hit the tiger straight in the jaw. The tiger fell back, stunned. It crawled itself up to the hole to investigate when two fists, a white-gloved one and a tasseled one, caught it on the already aching jaw. A few seconds later, Sailor Jupiter and I were standing tall in front of Eclipse and Sailor Moon. "It's Sailor Heart and Sailor Jupiter!" cried Sailor Moon thankfully. "You were expecting maybe, the animal shelter?" quipped Jupiter. "All right, you overgrown furball. Let's play cat scratch fever!" I challenged. After dodging several blows from the tiger, I sunk my fist into the tiger's rib cage. It staggered back a few feet then turned and covered the forms of Sailor Mars and Sailor Venus, who were still unconscious. An energy cloud surrounded the three and soon all that remained was the tiger who was now sporting red and orange stripes in addition to the original blue and black stripes. With one last enraged glare, it too disappeared. "NOOOOOOO!" cried Moon, Jupiter, Eclipse, and I in an eerie unison. Sailor Mars and Sailor Venus were gone. "Nice way to save them!" growled Eclipse as she grabbed me and lifted me off the ground. I batted her hands away and readjusted my uniform. "Excuse me, but I was the one fighting the tiger, remember?" And soon enough Eclipse and I were at each others' throats. "Stop this NOW!" screamed a seething Sailor Moon. "I used to think Raye and I were bad, but you two are worse!" "Serena, I... I...." Eclipse stuttered. "Shut up, Haley. You're my sister and I love you, but you have no reason to lay blame on Sailor Heart. He works his butt for this group and that's all I can ask of any one of the Scouts." Eclipse started staring at the ground. Sailor Moon was right, and she was starting to believe it. For a moment, I thought I would walk away from this battle unscathed. I was wrong. "And you..." started Sailor Moon again while pointing at me. "How dare you even consider the fact that Eclipse is from the Negaverse? Both Darien and I have acknowledged what she has said to be the truth. You have no reason to mistrust Eclipse at all. Yet you still question her motive after every fight. If you trust Darien and I, why can't you trust her?" She was right again. I was being rash and obstinate. I guess I had misjudged the girl and the princess. Turning a potential ally into an enemy is never a wise course of action. Eclipse and I looked at each other for a half a minute. We were both extremely upset but neither of us showed it. I finally extended my hand to Eclipse. It was a bold move from my point of view. It was like throwing myself into a pit of snakes and hoping that none were poisonous. Eclipse was hesitant at first, but she must have figured that I wasn't so bad after all. "If Serena and Raye can trust you, I guess I can too." she wept in grievance for Raye, and in finding a bond, be it a shaky one, with me. She shook my hand firmly. I looked at Jupiter, and swallowed hard relieved. "I guess that works both ways too. On both our parts, right Jupiter?" Jupiter smiled and took Haley's hand in hers. "Now isn't the time to have wedges between any of us." said Jupiter; the tears welling in her eyes as well as in mine. We all helped Sailor Moon up and changed back to our normal selves. "I guess we should head back to the hospital and report what's happened. And, maybe figure out a way to get Raye and Mina back." stated Lita. Tears still streaming down all our faces as we remembered the sight of losing their friends. "It won't be easy. Especially if we only have four of us. Amy is still out of commission and so is Darien." said Haley trying to regain a hold on her emotions. "It'll have to be done though." I wiped the tears from my face. "As a team this time?" He shot a glance towards Haley and she nodded. "As a team." she spoke softly and I actually felt united as a real team. As I looked at Lita, I could tell that she sensed it too. * * * Haley sat down beside the bed that the girl was laid out on. She was still being monitored by machines and had tubes seemingly coming out of every spot on her body. Haley could sense a vast storage of inner strength in this girl. `In another time and place,' she mused, `you would have made one hell of a Sailor Scout.' She smiled and placed her hand between the girl's fingers. She felt it the fingers close around her hand. A movement! It was a good sign. She ran to tell Serena the good news about her friend.