YOUMAS! Minako was in her bedroom with her eyes watching the emptiness. The radio was babbling in the background, and it was making her feeling numb...almost sleepy. She was thinking about her encounter with Setsuna, her sweet smile, her soothing words, her sensual silence... 'she's got to be so terribly good looking too, just to torture me...' were the last words she thought before leaving the tangible world, falling into the land of dreams, while wondering which one of the worlds was the real one anyways. "and though you hold the Keys to ruin Of everything I see With every prison blown to dust, My enemies walk free Though all my kingdoms turn to sand And fall into the sea I'm mad about you... I'm mad about you." She woke up in the middle of the dark with the radio on. The night felt so incredibly long, Minako took a glance on her clock and it's hands where in the same place than when she felt asleep. She felt her body rested, as she would have slept for hours. Something was wrong. ------------------------------------------------------------ The bluish light of the computer screen was blinking reflections over the wall. Mizuno Ami was asleep over the keyboard and her body was showing signals of a restless dream. She was walking along the shore on a beautiful afternoon. Makoto was by her side, holding her hand. 'sweet Mako-chan...' The tall girl pointed to the horizon and Amy watched the sun setting on the fine line drew by the sea. Suddenly her hand felt empty, cold, and Makoto wasn't by her side anymore. The water under her feet was completely black. The ringing of the phone took her out of the dream, and with a trembling hand she picked it up. "..he-llo..?" "Hello Ami, it's Michiru, sorry to wake you up so late, but I needed to talk to you about something extremely serious." "...umm, oh, yes, don't worry, it's alright, I was in the computer anyways. What do you want to talk about, Michiru?" "Well...I cannot talk about this by phone, I would prefer to discuss this in person. Haruka will pick you up in an hour, we are staying at the beach house this weekend." "I see it's urgent...I'll be ready...anything you want to tell me in advance?" Amy was intrigued about this urgency, although she was felling still numb from her unwanted nap on the desk chair. "I'm sorry Ami...I guess that the only thing I can say is that the water is involved, and you know is our element, and I'm feeling a disturbance that I cannot comprehend, so I need your help to figure this up." "...I understand Michiru, I'll bring my computer...I feel that too." "I imagined you would understand. I'll see you in a while Ami, thanks for your understanding." "You're welcome..." and the tone of the line suddenly woke her up completely from her numbness, making the phone fall from her fingers, and over the desk. 'I'll better get ready...' and, for some reason, all the trip with Haruka to the coast, she couldn't stop thinking about Makoto. ------------------------------------------------------------ The beach house was built in a beautiful isolated place beside the ocean, and Michiru was standing on a small cliff, watching the big water mass under the clear sky. Haruka and Ami walked towards her in silence, and their steps got lost in the sound of the water splashing against the rocks. "Is still there, love?" Haruka put a protective arm around her shoulders, and Michiru looked at her and Ami, and answered "it's growing bigger..." Ami followed Michiru's intrigued gaze, and found a spot in the ocean, exactly in front of the cliff, where the water had turned completely black. The light of the full moon, let them see the phenomenon, though it wasn't too clear due to the darkness of the night. Michiru held a potent industrial flashlight in her hand, and turned it on. "Look" The colorless dot on the water, was slowly craddled by the strength of the tide, but, besides that motion, it stayed in the same place. "It's probably not related to this...but I had a vivid dream today..." Amy said with a shy soft voice. Michiru looked at her with a worried expression. "The water was turning black...and I was with...well...it doesn't matter, but I had a strong feeling of danger coming from it", Ami looked at the strange dot on the water, and the smile of Makoto invaded her thoughts. "I dreamed about that too, Ami, I think this is very serious, and we have to figure it out, before something bad happens." "Do you think this might be coming from the Negaverse, Michiru?" "wherever it's coming from...it's sure not from here". And with these words they started to climb down closer to their point of interest. ------------------------------------------------------------ Setsuna was in her room, with one of her physics books in her hands. The silence in the house was intruding, interrupted by the noises of the night, and the music of the wind, blowing careless outside the window. Hotaru was spending the weekend with Chibi-Usa, Haruka and Michiru were on the beach house, and the lonely young woman was lost in her solitude, unable to concentrate on her doctorate researchs. Victim of her own composure, she was unable to express her feelings for Minako, and she doubted the blonde girl would feel anything but frienship for her, and the thought of being without her company was making her miserable. 'At least she liked to spend time with me before', but lately the visits to her house stopped, and she didn't dare to call her to ask her why. 'I wonder what happened to her today...' she thought, and remembered she used to be so cheerful and talkative almost all the time, never feeling uncomfortable or threatened by her formality (probably knowing that this was just in the surface, a consequence of the weight of her duty guarding the Gates of Time). 'She didn't say much... she looked so sad...is probably about a boy. She's a beautiful woman. I wonder who could dare break her heart in that way.' The book fell without a sound on her bed, and she closed her eyes trying to comunicate with her visions of the future one more time. Nothing. When she was starting to realize about her lack of abilities to handle the Gates of Time anymore, Haruka popped into her mind like a computer comercial in the middle of a boring midnight show. "We need you at the beach house Setsuna." And she run to her car, and left towards the coast, unsure of the reality of her last vision. ------------------------------------------------------------ Michiru, Haruka, Makoto, Minako, Usagi and Rei were around the table listening to Ami's hypothesis. She stopped for a moment, distracted by the noise of Setsuna's car engine out of the cottage, and took a sip of her hot tea, waiting for the outer senshi to join the group. Michiru opened the door, inviting her to come in, showing with a gesture of her arm the girls by the table, interrupting her with a soft "it's alright" knowing in that expression a glimpse of apologies for appearing in the place without even a phone call. Minako's heart was pounding with anxiety, and her eyes inmediatly looked at the table when they met Setsuna's burning gaze; '...and I'm supossed to be the goddess of love...' she thought while grabbing a cup of tea, just to distract her body to betray her with a give away move. After explaining Setsuna the reason for their meeting, Ami continued "I took a sample of the black water. The chemical composition shows a mixture that was comparable to the one the earth had in the origins of life. Is not affected by the order of the molecules of the rest of the ocean, apparently is protected by a magnetic field that isolates it completely, but I cannot find the source where it comes from." The whole group was with their eyes in Ami, except for Minako, that was staring at the bottom of her teacup, while looking at Setsuna's direction with her peripheral vision. "I couldn't take more than one sample, but there's an organism that is rapidly growing inside, that had the shape of an unicellular lifeform at the beginning, but is turning to different forms by the second, something that took millions of years to nature when it comes to evolution". Michiru moved uncomfortable on her chair and added "That's why we are here. The sea is being used as a living laboratory, a giant test tube where something is growing with unknown purposes; the isolation and the darkness seem to have the hand writing of the Negaverse all over it." Rei was sitting beside Usagi, anxious to go back to the moment where they were interrupted at the shrine. "Why don't we just go and do something now, before it gets worst, out of hand, and stop the process when is still posible?" In that moment, Setsuna, that was standing with her back against a wall, in the shadow, said softly "Because for some reason, I lost control of the Gates of Time, and if we do anything now, it will repeat itself again and again, until the process is completed." Haruka looked puzzled after her comment "...but you received my message, you have some perception left." "That's the only thing I could receive in my mind today, I feel without doubt that we're going to have to wait, and I'll have control of Time again when is done." Although the light over the table couldn't reach above her neck, Minako could see the sadness in her face. "I'll go for a walk to see what's going on outside." Without saying another word, Minako stormed outside, trying to escape from her feelings, completely blinded by her thoughts. Inside the black pool of water, a creature evolved in thousand forms with a frightening speed, keeping in its body the organs that would make it suitable for surviving in water, land and air. It was growing in size and rage, provoked by the pain of the rate of the unnatural evolution. Suddenly the invisible jail that was keeping the creature inside disappeared, and it flew out of the water looking for a victim. It had gills and lungs, four feline-like legs that ended up in sharp claws, wings on the back that would make a boing 747 look like a sparrow beside them, and a T-rex like head that was covered by a thick protective reptile skin as the rest of its body. It was still clumsy when it hit her. Minako was lucky, even though unconcious over the cold sand, after the creature rolled over her in his thirst for revenge against something he couldn't comprehend. All the senshis were inside, watching in horror the scene outside, and invoked their powers, while a desperate Setsuna ran to rescue the inmovile delicate body out of danger. Haruka shook the earth with her attack, but that only called the attention of the creature, that charged blindely against the outer senshi, pushing her over the cliff, leaving Neptune paralized, after seing her partner disappear in the water. Jupiter hurted him with her thunder, but after rolling heavily over the sand, it turn and hit her with it's tail, throwing the body of the tallest girl away from Mercury and over the grass, where Rei was concentrating her fire attack towards it's head. The water senshi hit him with her ice blast, leaving the creature confused and slow, and Sailor Moon finished him with a move of her moon scepter, distroying it's molecular composition. The thing disappear in the air like a vanishing quimera. Neptune was on the shore, with an unconcious Uranus in her arms. Jupiter was bleeding profusely from her neck and left shoulder, and was walking blindly, dazzled by her growing pain. The beach cottage looked like an improvised infirmary, the injured girls lying on the beds, while the other were running around, bringing water and gauzes without saying a word. Minako opened her eyes, and found Setsuna sitting by her side holding a pack of ice against her head, close to her right ear, where the creature had opened a superficial wound not to long ago. She sat on the bed and a sharp pain crossed her forehead. "You should stay still for a while, even though is not severe, you were unconcious for almost an hour." Her voice was soft, and her eyes tired and watery. 'She's been crying' The thought made the blond girl sad for a moment, but in the back of her mind a light of hope shyly started to shine. Michiru was in the other room taking care of Haruka, and both of them had a look of complicity in their faces, the kind that only lovers have, knowing what the other one is thinking. They were facing Ami, taking care of Makoto's wounds. They were both blushing, and Mako-chan was staring at Ami with a glare of love in her eyes. "Do you see what I see?" Haruka whispered to her lover. "Yes I do, but you should try to rest instead of playing the matchmaker, my love".
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