^_^;  Not my characters, no profit being made, please don't sue me, but feedback is always a nice thing to find in my inbox.

 

Warnings & Labels: Alternate Universe, Out of Character, Yaoi friendly, inconsistencies from part to part, downright weird, etc etc etc.  Flames will be dealt with unkindly.

 

"..." Dialogue

/.../ Thoughts

//...// Flashbacks

*...* Emphasis

|...| Smartass Inner Voices (tm)

<...> Eerie Disembodied Voices (tm)

 

@)~~}~~~~~

 

Soul's Winter

Part Four: Bad News...

 

"I wonder how things went last night with Yuichirou," Makoto murmured at lunch.

 

Usagi looked distant.  "Not well, I'll bet," she replied.  "I'm more worried about Naru--and Umino.  No one answers the phone at Naru's house... and Umino's mom said he didn't come home from school the day before yesterday."

 

"You think they're connected," Ami said quietly, not really asking.

 

"Do you think it's the enemy?" Makoto lowered her voice.

 

The three girls looked at each other uneasily.  "We don't *know* that there's an enemy--yet." Usagi said evenly.  "And I, for one, have no idea what the enemy would do with Naru, much less Umino."

 

That broke the tension somewhat, and they giggled uneasily.

 

~*~

 

"You want me to see if this bad feeling I have is related to Naru?" Rei stared at Usagi.  "Are you crazy?"

 

"Rei, just humor me, please?" Usagi asked tiredly.  "I know it's a really weird idea, but I'm just getting too worried about her.  Do it for my sake?"

 

"Okay, okay, if you insist." Rei led the way to the fire room.

 

"By the way, where's Yuichirou?" Makoto asked innocently.  "I don't hear him working."

 

Rei's back became stiff.  "He left."

 

"For good?  I'm sorry, Rei." Makoto looked embarrassed.  "I didn't realize--"

 

"It's okay, don't worry about it." Rei settled herself in front of the flames.  The other three ranged themselves behind her.  "Do you want to wait for Minako, Usagi?"

 

"No, just go ahead." Usagi folded her hands together, forcing an outward calm to descend over face.  /Naru, where are you?/

 

Rei inhaled deeply, losing herself in the rituals of the meditation.  Slowly, she cast out her thoughts, focusing on Naru, trying to get some sense of where the girl was.

 

She didn't realize it, but she began to frown as she searched and searched... and found nothing.  Rei redoubled her efforts, reaching out for Naru--and finding only darkness like a wall, obstructing her vision.

 

/This is not good./

 

|Damn straight.|

 

Rei opened her eyes.  "Usagi... I've got bad news, and I've got worse news."

 

Ami stood.  "I'll go call the guys.  They should be here for this."

 

~*~

 

 

"Yes, Your Majesty.  What was it?"

 

Metallia sounded faintly reproving.

 

"Forgive me, Your Majesty.  I have failed you by underestimating the enemy." Naru prostrated herself before Metallia, trembling in fear.

 

  They have learned nothing, and will not until we desire them to.>

 

"Thank you, Your Majesty." Naru's voice was filled with her gratitude.  "What shall I do now, Your Majesty?"

 

  I trust that I do not need to remind you to be careful?>

 

"I hear and obey, Your Majesty." Naru hastened away, vastly relieved at the narrow escape from disaster.

 

~*~

 

"Oh, hell," Nephrite muttered after hearing Rei's report.  "Why do I have a feeling that this is all my fault?"

 

"Probably because it *is* your fault," Zoisite informed him. 

 

Mamoru headed off the argument before it could start.  "Now isn't the time, you two."

 

"The question now is what we should do, and how we do it," Minako interjected.  "This is starting--to feel exactly like the fall of the Silver Millennium to me.  We have a faceless, nameless darkness, and a bad feeling about it, and not a clue besides."

 

"Well, I don't plan on standing around and watching another life get destroyed by evil," Makoto said firmly.  "We've got to stop this cycle."

 

"How do you propose to do that?" Zoisite asked.

 

"...I haven't quite worked that part out yet," she admitted.  "Give it some time."

 

"Question one: Who is our enemy?" Ami murmured.  "Question two: Where is our enemy?  Question three: How do we defeat them?"

 

They pondered this for a while.  "It doesn't seem to be the same as the Doom Phantom or his lot," Mamoru said thoughtfully, "so I think we can rule them out."

 

"Yes," Nephrite murmured.  "This seems more like the old enemy..."

 

Zoisite blinked.  "...Metallia?" he ventured.

 

"But I thought we destroyed Beryl and Metallia," Rei protested.  "Besides, wouldn't Kunzite have said something if he thought Metallia was still around?  Wouldn't we have found traces of Metallia during our exploration?"

 

"Metallia's kind of evil is hard to destroy," Usagi said quietly, "and even harder to detect, until it's too late."

 

"That doesn't mean this couldn't be a completely new enemy," Rei argued.  "You never know.  I don't think we should jump to any conclusions.  I think we would have found something in the Negaverse if Metallia were still around."

 

"Not necessarily," Nephrite disagreed.  "Metallia didn't inhabit quite the same dimension as the rest of us did... weakened from a battle, she probably would have been undetectable."

 

"Do you agree, Zoisite?" Minako asked.

 

"It's certainly possible," he thought out loud, "but I don't think we should assume that the enemy is Metallia." He frowned.  "I think the best course might be to conduct reconnaissance of Metallia's territory.  If we find something, good, if we don't... we think of something else."

 

"That's too risky," Ami replied.  "It's practically walking into a trap, especially if Metallia is the enemy in this case.  Sending a team in to scout out the terrain is lunacy."

 

"We could all go," Makoto pointed out. 

 

"And risk everyone?  That's even worse," Rei snorted.

 

"We have to do *something*," Minako interrupted.  "What are our other options?"

 

"Rei and I can devote ourselves to getting to the bottom of this mystery," Nephrite offered.

 

"Not that that's done a lot of good so far," Zoisite complained.

 

"Well, it's better than doing nothing."

 

"Calm down, you two," Mamoru said sharply.  "We don't need internal enemies on top of everything else."

 

"Old habits die hard," Nephrite muttered.  Zoisite opened his mouth to say something, but took a look at the grim expression on his liege's face and wisely said nothing.  "The only other option I see at this point is biding our time until whoever this enemy is decides to strike.  I doubt any of us want to do that."

 

"So... who's going to go?" Makoto asked, after everyone had taken time to think the options over.

 

"Either Neph or I should go," Zoisite said.  "One of us will have the best chance of finding anything."

 

"Why not both of you?" Rei asked.

 

"Someone has to stay behind and keep an eye on him," Zoisite shrugged, nodding at Mamoru.

 

"Eh?  What makes you think I'm staying behind?" Mamoru demanded, stung.

 

Zoisite crossed his arms.  "What makes you think we'd let you walk blind into the lair of a potential enemy, Cape Boy?  It's too damn risky."

 

Nephrite glanced at him as Mamoru's mouth tightened imperceptibly.  "Go or stay?"

 

Zoisite considered it.  "Stay.  You're more in tune with the mystical thing than I am.  Besides, how tough can babysitting him really be?"

 

"Why don't we find out?" Mamoru inquired, icily calm.

 

Nephrite laughed at him.  "You might as well get used to this again, Endymion.  You know we're not allowed to let you just do dangerous stuff--it goes against our oaths, remember?"

 

"All right, so Nephrite is going.  Who's going with him?" Minako inquired, heading off the potential battle of wills. 

 

Usagi smiled wryly.  "I suppose it's entirely out of the question for me to go along?"

 

"Absolutely," Minako nodded.

 

"I'll go," Makoto volunteered.

 

"Big surprise there," Zoisite said under his breath.

 

|Now, be nice.|

 

/Hn.  I don't do nice./

 

Nephrite was about to argue with his fiancée, but saw the stubborn set of her jaw and sighed.  "All right."

 

"I'll go," Ami added.  "My computer might be able to pick up some trace of the enemy."

 

"Should we take anybody else?" Nephrite asked.

 

"...no," Minako decided, after a moment's thought.  "I don't like splitting our forces up as it is, and if the enemy should decide to attack, I want enough people here to protect the princess.  The three of you will have to be enough."

 

"Well..." Makoto looked at the other two.  "When do we leave?"

 

~*~

 

Nephrite looked around and shook his head.  "I think I'd forgotten just how much I really don't like this place."

 

Jupiter looked around at the dankness of the Negaverse and shrugged.  "Well, Beryl could have definitely used the advice of a good interior decorator, that's for sure.  Getting anything, Mercury?"

 

Mercury shook her head, head bent over her palm computer, busily typing in the codes for scans and compiling the data.  "This place is about as empty as it gets."

 

"Neph, how about you?"

 

"...nothing.  There's nothing here."

 

Mercury lifted her head.  "Nephrite, can you get us to that cross-dimension that you and Zoisite described?  It's possible that we'll only find energy readings from there."

 

He grimaced.  "This probably isn't going to be very pleasant," he warned them, casting his memory back to the time when he'd been a slave of Metallia.  "I don't quite have the same knack for this that I used to..."

 

In the end he was right: it was a very unpleasant trip... and somewhat bumpy, as well.

 

Jupiter was the first one able to pick herself up off the slimy floor.  "A little out of practice, huh?" she grumbled, with forced cheerfulness, as she looked around the darkness that was *just* illuminated by a faint red glow that seemed to permeate the very air.

 

"Can I help that I don't belong to the enemy anymore?  Technically, I'm really not supposed to be doing this at all," Nephrite groaned, getting up.  "That *really* hurt."

 

Jupiter shivered.  "I'll fuss over you when we get home, okay?" she promised.  "This place is giving me the creeps."

 

Mercury, sitting cross-legged on the floor, was already hunched over her computer, the faint light from the screen casting an eldritch blue glow over her face.  She swallowed and looked up.  "There's something here, guys."

 

Nephrite looked off into the darkness.  "I know," he whispered.  "Worse than that... *she* knows we're here."

 

"Okay, so does this count as knowing we have an enemy?" Jupiter asked, voice hushed.  "Because, if it does, I think we should get out of here, you know?"

 

"I think it's a little bit too late for that," Mercury said softly, as the level of the light began to rise and the darkness turned into gloom.  "Yes, it's definitely a little late for that."

 

The sound of one person's applause greeted her statement, as the light seemed to reach a stable level, revealing that they stood in the center of a large, roughly elliptic room, the ceiling of which was lost in the gloom.  The clapping came from the individual seated on a throne raised on the dais just beneath the source of the somber reddish light--an alcove, accessible by the sweeping flight of stairs flanking it, that housed a pulsing, blood-red mass. 

 

The two scouts and the guardian stared at the throne's occupant as she ceased clapping.  "I certainly hope you aren't going to leave so soon," Naru said mildly, "since you went to such trouble to get here."

 

Jupiter stared, disbelieving.  "*Naru*?!" she exclaimed.

 

"Surprised?  Of course you are.  The lot of you always seems to underestimate everyone who isn't a member of your elite little group." Naru gave a chilly little laugh.  "It's really a very bad habit, you know.  One of these millennia, it's going to cause you a great deal of trouble."

 

"Gloating doesn't become you, Naru," Nephrite said softly.

 

That seemed to be the wrong thing to say, as Naru's eyes snapped dangerously.  "Oh, really," she smiled, showing sharp teeth.  "Since when did *you* start caring about what becomes me, darling Nephrite?"

 

He gritted his teeth.  "Naru, I always cared about you, just not in the way you wanted."

 

She slammed her hand down on the arm of her throne.  "That's not good enough!" she shouted.  "There was a time when I *was* the one you cared about!  What gave you the right to change your mind?!" Abruptly she calmed herself, regaining her composure and smiling at them again.  "Well, never mind that now.  Where is dear Usagi?  I'm surprised she isn't here as well."

 

"What do you want, Naru?" Mercury asked tiredly.

 

Naru's smile widened.  "It's not what *I* want," she said beatifically, "it's what my mistress wants."

 

Jupiter closed her eyes.  "You became Metallia's slave?  Naru, how *could* you?"

 

Naru sniffed.  "I don't recall giving you permission to speak.  Don't do it anymore."

 

"Why you--" Jupiter growled, starting toward the throne. 

 

"Jupiter, don't!" Mercury shouted, as Naru lifted her hand and brushed it in Jupiter's direction, as one might shoo a fly.  A bolt of energy knocked Jupiter back several feet.

 

Naru chuckled again, sounding rather pleased with herself.  "I *told* her not to speak again," she murmured, lifting one shoulder in a careless shrug.  She glared as Nephrite hurried over to Jupiter, checking over the dazed Scout and helping her up.

 

"What does Metallia want?" Mercury asked softly, already knowing the answer.

 

"Oh, really, Ami, haven't you figured it out?  Metallia wants what she has always wanted, the Silver Crystal.  My purpose is to serve her in achieving that goal.  If I serve *very* well, she may choose to reward me." Naru looked Nephrite over, obviously feeling no need to describe what her reward might be.  "I'm afraid I'll have to do something about that slut, though."

 

Nephrite clapped a hand over Jupiter's mouth before she could react to that.  "I am *not* some prize to be won," he said angrily.  "And if you harm her in *any* way, I swear on the Earth and the Moon and the Sun that I will kill you."

 

"We shall see," Naru dismissed his threat casually.  "This is getting a bit tiresome.  Go home, and tell Usagi what I expect from her.  If she doesn't deliver it, then I'll have no choice but to take it, by force.  None of you would want that, I presume... especially when there might be casualties among the innocent bystanders."

 

Mercury blanched, realizing that Naru was threatening not only the Scouts, but also their families.  "You wouldn't!"

 

"Try me." Naru wasn't smiling anymore.  "I will give you twenty-four hours to deliver the crystal.  Then there will be... consequences."

 

The three of them stared at her, horrified.

 

Naru raised her eyebrows.  "Hadn't you better be going?  The clock is already ticking, you know.  Or would you prefer a bit of a boost out of here?" She lifted her hands.

 

Nephrite growled something unintelligible and angry, and wrenched them away from Metallia's dimension.

 

Metallia commented. 

 

"I've thrown down the gauntlet, Your Majesty," Naru explained.  "I threatened their families.  They will do anything to protect their so-called loved ones, even if it means delivering the Silver Crystal into our hands.  Of course, they may feel obliged to fight, but they will have to contend with the fact that the enemy is old and familiar and dear to them... whereas we will have no such compunctions.  Nobility, I'm afraid they'll find, has its drawbacks."

 

Metallia laughed fondly. 

 

"Thank you, Your Majesty."

 

~*~

 

As Nephrite, Jupiter, and Mercury reappeared in an ungainly sprawl in the room where the rest of their companions waited anxiously, Zoisite sighed.  "Things didn't go very well, did they?"

 

"They went worse," Nephrite groaned.  "Guys, I've got some very bad news."

 

"We found the enemy," Jupiter sat up, gingerly.  "It's Metallia... and Naru is serving her."

 

Usagi's eyes widened almost comically.  "Naru?!  Serving Metallia?  It's impossible!"

 

"It's true, Your Highness," Mercury said sadly, sorting herself out of the tangle of arms and legs and checking Jupiter over carefully.  "She demanded that you deliver the Silver Crystal within twenty-four hours... or..."

 

"Or what?" Rei asked.

 

"Or she'll use force to take it." Mercury rubbed her eyes tiredly.  "And she threatened to go through our families to get it."

 

"No way!" Usagi protested.  "Naru would never do a thing like that!"

 

"It's not Naru," Nephrite said quietly.  "Not the Naru we used to know.  She's become just like Beryl, a conduit for Metallia."

 

"We're going to have to fight," Minako said quietly.  "I am *not* letting Metallia harm my family, so help me."

 

"But... it's *Naru*," Usagi protested.  "I can't fight Naru!  There must be some way to save her!"

 

"Maybe there is, Usagi," Mamoru said softly.  "But we're going to have to be prepared if there isn't."

 

Usagi's eyes filled with tears, and she hid her face in Mamoru's shoulder.

 

Rei sighed, summing up the collective sentiments of the room.  "Well, shit."

 

~tbc~

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