The Fragility of Time

BOOK TWO: "Falling Towards Apotheosis"

Chapter 24: Continuous Fire

Author: etj4Eagle

Email: etj4Eagle@yahoo.com

http://www.geocities.com/etj4eagle

La sted Edited: 3/5/02

Disclaimer: A reminder I own none of the characters of this story, all rights are owned by others. However, the unique circumstances of the story are mine. If you distribute the story, do only so freely and inform me of where you post it.

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"Ok, Ami-chan we are all here now." an impatient Minako said, anxious to head out and go guy hunting.

"Don't worry Mina-chan, I will be quick, I just need to give you all your new communicators."

"Why do we need new ones?" Usagi asked.

"The main reason is so that we can communicate with any military forces that might be deployed. Even though the recent battles have been relatively minor, I do expect that we are going to see Rubeus returning to his more devastating attacks before too long. And just having my computer and Artemis's backpack may be too limiting. So I have made us new communicators that are capable of communication on the encrypted military channels."

"Thank god, I can get rid of that ugly backpack" Artemis happily said from where he sat beside Minako. That comment, however, earned him a bump on the head from his master, who was not pleased with his dislike of her improvement to his backpack.

"Also these communicators are designed to be disguised as watches," Ami said while holding up hers. "Which means that you won't have to dig through your bag to find one." The last bit she said while looking meaningfully at Usagi.

"That did not happen that often." Usagi defended.

"Sure, just those one or two times when we needed you." Rei replied.

This of course prompted Usagi's usual response of how mean Rei was to her and the two girls descended into another one of their arguments, causing the other Senshi to just drop their heads in defeat. Well all except for Setsuna. For the Time Senshi the stress of no longer knowing the future or even just knowing that things would turn out all right in the end was finally getting to her. This argument was just one straw too much and she snapped. Between one moment and the next, she was suddenly behind the two girls both of them up in the air by the necks of their shirts.

Having gotten their attention she simply said, "There will be none of that." then looking over at Ami she said, "Ami-chan you may continue."

"Arigatoo Setsuna-san." Ami replied. "Like I was saying I have a new communicator for each of you that will double as a watch. Only your Senshi energies will activate them. And since Mamoru-san doesn't quite have the same warning of a pending Senshi battle, now that Usagi is Serenity all the time, I have made one for him as well. Luna and Artemis, you two will get yours later, Central Control needs to recharge before it can make anymore."

With that Ami handed out the eight new communicators, she had not made one for ChibiUsa. Except for Mamoru and Haruka, the Senshi looked at their new communicators with some disdain, not quite happy with their large size. Though before long Usagi realized that her glamour magic worked on the communicator as well. Happy with her discovery she changed it into a more appropriately sized watch.

"Ah, Ami-chan, I hate to break this to you but these "watches" are just a tad bit on the large size." Michiru politely stated.

"Yeah I know, but this is the smallest that I could get the communicators. Even Silver Millennium technology has its limits." Ami replied. Of course, her response did nothing to remove the five disproving looks she was receiving.

"But yours is small." Minako replied, confused.

"Is it?" Ami asked as her simple small watch suddenly enlarged to the size of the other communicators. "Just like how we cast a glamour spell to disguise ourselves in our Senshi forms, you can cast a glamour spell on the communicator as well, allowing you to make it smaller. Or if you don't want a watch and instead want a bracelet you can do that as well." As Ami said the last bit, her communicator shimmered again before becoming a silver bracelet. "Of course it will take some time to get comfortable with the magics."

Soon after that, the meeting broke up, with the Senshi, except for Usagi and Setsuna, still trying to figure out how to get their communicators to adjust as they left. As Haruka and Michiru headed towards Haruka's sports car, Setsuna approached them. "I don't know how much of your memories from the Silver Millennium have returned, but it is time to begin your training as Guardians of the Solar System. Your path lies along a different direction from that of the Royal Guard." Setsuna told them.

Not missing a beat Haruka replied, "That is why we knew that there was an alien presence from outside the solar system when that meteor crashed."

"Hai, the two of you stood guard in the outer solar system watching for threats from the outside. As such, your powers were stronger then those of inner planets who protected the queen and then when her child was born, the princess exclusively. I similarly stood a solo guard, in my case guarding against those who would use time to attack the Silver Millennium."

Michiru nodded in agreement with what Setsuna was saying. "The whisper from the waves had implied as much." Then gesturing to Setsuna, they all got into the car. As they headed towards Michiru's house, Michiru continued. "There is something else as well. I felt a building urgency in the seas, a new threat coming?" she ended with a question.

"It is possible, I don't know. The flow of time has become too muddled. What was once the right path is now a path to damnation. But I do know that the talismans will be sought after soon, and that the Messiah of Silence will have to be faced and the Messiah of Light found. And that a force from outside our galaxy will begin searching for the Messiah of Silence's power soon."

Haruka and Michiru listened to Setsuna as half remembered memories and feelings came to mind. Till now the only clear memory of their past life had been their princess, a bright light in the fog of their past. But with Setsuna's words, memories of a warrior that could bring the Silver Millennium to its knees if she/he ever awoke came back. They could not remember anything about this warrior, only that during the Silver Millennium even the Senshi feared him/her. Additionally they remembered Pluto in the past personally training them to the strong warriors that they were.

The two of them had been unusual amongst the Sol Senshi, two Senshi born within the same year, a strange occurrence that would be repeated only one other time with the birth of the final Serenity and the Senshi of Venus occurring less than a month apart. Of course, in that case, Serenity was not a Senshi, and the Moon Queens lived nowhere as long as a Senshi. But with Uranus and Neptune their near simultaneous birth posed a significant problem, who to train them. They normally trained each other, being that there was usually at least a few hundred years in age between the two. But not this time, and since they had different powers and responsibilities than the Royal Guard, they unfortunately couldn't really be trained by any of those four either.

The problem of their training had perplexed Sailor Venus and the Queen and had remained unresolved. Without an answer, Venus and Lord Artemis had undertaken the task of training the two children in fighting techniques and creating the matrix of spells that would form their Sailor Fuku. As they approached their 14th birthdays with only two years remaining before they would officially take their places as Senshi no solution had been found. But then out of the blue a solution presented herself; Pluto appeared, leaving her post at the Gate of Spacetime for something other than a coronation for the first time in generations. From that day forward, Pluto took Princesses Uranus and Neptune as her apprentices and trained them in the ways of the System Guardians, building a trust and understanding that would transcend death.

Engrossed in manga, Usagi laid sprawled out on one of Minako's couches. Minako had quite a collection of Sailor V manga, while Usagi did not know for sure, she hazard a guess that Minako had to have nearly every one ever published. Minako even had some issues that she had never even heard about. Even though she had her favorite super hero there in the room next to her, something about the Sailor V in the manga still called to her and she devoured every issue she could get a hold of.

Luna just sighed from where she was laying on top of the couch watching the two Senshi. <Those two are so alike. I can't understand how they can still hero worship heroes that they know to be themselves. The duality of this gives me headaches at times. Though, I guess it does help to keep others from guessing that two of the most avid fans of Sailor V and Sailor Moon are non other than those warriors.>

As the hall clock chimed the hour, Minako put down the Sailor V manga she was reading and walked over to the TV. Turning it on, she returned to the couch with the remote, while taking out a notebook and pencil. Luna was intrigued when she saw Minako pull out the notebook and decided to see what Minako was planning on watching. While this was going on Artemis also came over from his nap in the sun to sit with his charge.

Luna's attempts to follow what Minako was watching did not last even a minute. Instead, the constant flashing images from continuous channel changing caused her to look away. <Ugh, a channel surfer. And she's worse than most, I can't even tell what's on any of those channels before she moves on. Though it does prove what I have suspected with Artemis, he really is easily riveted by flashing lights.> If Luna had been able to follow Minako's channel surfing she would have noticed a very specific pattern. Minako only switched through the news channels. She had picked up this habit back during her days as Sailor V when many of the Dark Kingdom's operations appeared to be nothing more than standard criminal activity at first.

That of course being why some seemed to think of her as a crime fighter, if only they knew. Since those operations were disguised as standard fare crime, the various media outlets often picked up on them before she did. Using them as a source, she would watch the news programs. However, rarely did one station report all the tail-tell signs of a Dark Kingdom plot, instead each station would cover a different aspect that when viewed all together gave away the Dark Kingdom. But the only way to get that big picture was to watch all the broadcasts. One option was to tape each one and then spend all day watching them; the other was just to watch them all at once.

Not expecting Minako to do the impossible and watch all the broadcasts at once, Artemis had provided her with a nifty little device from Central Control. That little doohickey when placed in the VCR allowed her to record a dozen channels at once. But being a teenager, she wanted her nights' time free to go boy hunting. Consequently, she had started channel surfing and over time found herself to be quite good at it. Now she changed channels so frequently that only Artemis could keep up. This behavior did have one nice side effect, it caused her parents to leave the room when she watched TV in the afternoon and consequently they had no idea what she was watching.

"Wait, what's that?" Minako asked, getting the attention of the others.

"Yeah, something does not seem right." Artemis replied agreeing with his charge.

Taking out another remote, Minako began using the advanced features of her VCR. Quickly she found the news segments she was interested in. One after the other, reports from various news agencies came up about a bus carrying school children being found on the side of the road with everyone unconscious.

"What is it?" asked a confused Usagi.

"It's those aliens." Luna replied. "They are ambushing buses carrying school children and then draining their energy."

"Oh."

"This appears to be the second instance. They will probably try again. We should have Ami-chan see if she can find a common thread between the two attacks, so that we can put a stop to it."

"Hai." The others agreed and Luna left to find Ami.

Two days later Minako and Usagi stood in a park watching a group of kindergartners play. They unfortunately had to let another group be attacked yesterday before Ami could make any guess as to where they would attack next. As it was, her computer program still came up with 4 different possible locations.

Minako had paired them off to cover the four areas. Mars had complained loudly about not being paired with Usagi. However, Usagi wanted the Fire Senshi to be guarding her daughter. She could take care of herself, plus Mars needed to learn that the other Senshi were equally capable of watching her. <Of course, it would be nice if they would realize that I can look after myself.>

With their group starting to gather to leave on the bus, Minako nodded to her partner. Then catching the pen like object that Usagi tossed at her, Minako disguised herself as a teacher. Usagi of course did not need the pen anymore, being able to use the Ginzuishou to cast glamour spells and in this case she just needed to modify her current glamour spell. All set, the two boarded the bus.

Usagi sat down in her seat next to the window. Tuning out the noise of the children, she opened her mind hoping to get a hint of the enemy before they attacked. Minako for her part was excitedly talking with one of the kids about her favorite Senshi. If Usagi had been paying attention to what Minako was saying she would have had a hard time not strangling that girl. Minako was treading the line just a wee bit too closely.

A sudden lurch brought all conversations on the bus to an end and instead replaced them with a nervous silence. Looking over to where Minako sat on the bus, Usagi caught the blonde's eye. She herself had only felt the enemy's presence moments before the lurch, so much for trying to get an advanced warning.

Standing up, the two walked to the front of the bus. Checking on the driver, they found him to be unconscious but otherwise okay. They could not find any indication of what knocked the driver out, though the windshield had been smashed by whatever it was. Opening the bus's door, they started to leave.

Pausing for a moment, Minako addressed the children. "Minna-san stay in your seats. Everything will be okay, we are just going to go check things out."

Murmurs of "I'm scared," "Mommy," "And did they both have to go." Came from the children as the two left the bus.

Getting off the bus, the two took just a moment to look at each other before calling forth their powers to form the protective magic of their Senshi uniforms. Ready to find the enemy and put a stop to these bus attacks, they bounded up onto the roof of the bus. There to the side of the bus they saw the enemy's Cardian, the bus itself had spun almost crosswise to the tunnel when the driver was hit.

"Children are our future, they are innocent and do not deserve to be subjugated to the horrors of battle." Sailor Venus called out. "I am Sailor Venus and in the name of the planet Venus."

"And the Moon." Sailor Moon added, letting Venus have the honor of making the speech, "We will punish you."

"You puny humans think that you can stop us?" question Ail. "Think again brats."

Seeing the creature unleash an energy attack at the busload of children, Sailor Moon dropped to the ground while throwing her arms out wide as she called the Ginzuishou to life to form a shield to protect the children. Venus for her part leapt off the bus and as she reached the apex of her jump unleashed a Crescent Beam. The creature easily dodged the attack, not that she had expected to hit it, only distract it. Landing she prepared to use her Love-Me Chain, but a quick counter attack from the creature caught her off guard. Quickly dropping and rolling to one side, Venus managed to barely dodge the attack as a chunk was knocked out of the tunnel's wall <This one is obviously playing for keeps.>

As Venus and the Cardian exchanged blows back and forth, it quickly became evident that the two were very evenly matched. Sailor Moon would have gone to her friend's aid but unfortunately, the two aliens had decided to participate in this battle. Not any kind of participation that would put them in any real danger, but one that kept her fully occupied. The busload of kids made a very convenient set of hostages and consequently they sending a series of low energy attacks at the kids, most being energy drains. The result was that she could do nothing but stand her ground and maintain the shield. She just hoped that she would be able to hold out long enough, maintaining this shield was tiring.

"Why won't you die?" Venus cursed at the demon after it had once again knocked her down to the ground. This time she unfortunately had had a bit too much momentum and had skidded into Sailor Moon's shield, and boy did that hurt. Rubbing her sore shoulder, she got back to her feet. She could smell the charred Fuku and only hoped that her skin had fared a little better, but did not hold out much hope for that.

Trying her Love-Me Chain again, she lashed it out at the creature's legs, hoping to get it off balance. Unfortunately, it saw what she was doing and leapt to the side, narrowly avoiding her attack. <Damn, what am I doing wrong? I just hope that Usagi has called the others. Rei is going to kill me. But its not like we had any choice other than splitting up like this, unless we wanted to leave some children unwatched.>

A flash of red brought the battle to a halt. "Sailor Moon, Sailor Venus believe in yourselves. You have a power deep down inside waiting for the right moment to be released. Fight for the children." The tuxedo clad warrior said from atop the bus.

"Hai" Venus replied to his inspirational speech even though she had no clue as to what the heck he was talking about. Then remembering that new attack she had used not too long ago, she summoned a meteor shower of crescent beams. This time, though, the shower was a bit less intense, but still sufficient to knock the Cardian back against the far wall. "Yes!" Venus happily cried when she saw the results.

The sound of the bus starting up behind her let Sailor Moon know that it was safe to drop her shield. Tuxedo-Kamen had boarded the bus and had taken over for the knocked out driver. Letting out a little gasp of relief in being able to drop the shield spell, Sailor Moon walked towards the Cardian as she produced her Eternal Tier. Finding a renewed sense of energy with the end of the battle in sight stood straight and said, "This ends here."

With the base of her staff extending down to the tunnel floor, Sailor Moon closed her eyes and let the power of the moon flow into her body. She could feel its warm embraces as the energy built, penetrating every fiber of her body, as she and the energy seemed to become one. But in the warmness of the Moon's energy, she suddenly began to feel that something was wrong. She could not place the feeling, entranced as she was by the Moon's song. The sense of wrongness quickly became more than just a feeling as her world began to spiral out of control, a spiral of energy that trapped her mind and essence.

Venus watched happily, from where she stood a few paces from the stunned Cardian as Sailor Moon began her attack. <This will end it. Hmm, I wonder, if those aliens don't leave soon they may get taken out as well, since she doesn't seem to aim that attack. That would help simplify things.> However a touch of worry crossed her happiness as she saw her princess grimace. She, however, was not given any opportunity to ponder its meaning, as her world suddenly went dark as a shearing light exploded out from her princess.

Ail and Ann watched in fascination as the winged warrior pulled out a staff. With the bus of children gone and the other mage warrior finally getting the upper hand on their Cardian, they both knew that the battle was over. These bus attacks had been quite successful; they had gotten three busloads of children without any interference. Unfortunately, it seemed that each successive collection of energy was of lower quality. The tree was no longer getting any stronger, instead just barely surviving. They needed to figure out what had changed otherwise it would die.

Even though they knew this battle was a lost cause, they had decided to stay as long as possible to learn as much as they could about their enemies. Like Venus, the sudden discharge of energy caught them off guard. However, they had been expecting some kind of attack and had already erected low-level shield spells. Spells that they quickly called to full power as they teleported while the blast flung them like rag dolls. Even with their shields, they could still feel the energy both caressing them with warmness and burning away at them.

Then it was over and they were back in their apartment. Standing up they looked themselves over and counted themselves to be lucky. Except for some bruises, they two aliens were unhurt. That surprised them, as they had not expected to escape alive from that explosion of energy.

Erupting from Sailor Moon a wave of energy exploded in all directions. Unlike the gentle caress of her normal attack with the Eternal Tier, this one tore away from its master devouring everything it found in its path. Cars were tossed about like rag dolls, while the pavement below buckled and melted, and tiles were ripped off the tunnel's walls. The tunnel confined and redirected the energy, resulting in explosions just as powerful as the original one erupting from either end of the tunnel. For Tokyo, it was as if two massive bombs had gone off.

Driving the children to safety, Tuxedo-Kamen had only just left the tunnel when Sailor Moon began her attack to finish of the Cardian. This unfortunately meant that the bus was directly in line for the resulting shockwave. Though he was also lucky as the bus was still edge on to the tunnel. Struggling for control, Tuxedo-Kamen relied on his fighting instincts to keep the bus upright and forwent his earlier caution and put the petal to the metal in hope of lessening the shearing forces.

Sideswiping some cars, he somehow miraculously managed to keep the bus upright, though not exactly on the road. While it took only seconds for the shockwave to overtake the bus, it felt like an eternity to him. When it was finally over, he let the bus come to a rest against a building. Feeling exhausted from that ordeal he got up and turned to look at the children.

As much as he desired to run back into that tunnel to check on his Usako, he knew he couldn't. His duty was to these children who were now under his protection. "Minna-san, is everybody ok?" he asked.

While some of the kids had tears of fright in their eyes and some looked badly banged up, they all nodded or otherwise indicated that they were okay. <One good thing about kids is that they are very resilient. Just need to keep them from getting too scared and things should be okay.> "Why don't we leave bus and go find someplace more comfortable to be. Plus I think you all deserve a treat."

The reaction to his carrot was instantaneous. Instantly the mood and energy in the bus increased ten fold and the kids grabbed their book bags and lined up behind him. Smiling he pushed open the bus door and led his troop out on the streets. Unnoticed by him as he left the bus his form shifted from his tuxedo outfit to the armor that denoted the Earth Prince. However, the kids saw the change and came even more excited and having fun, they decided to fall in line and march behind their knight in shining armor.

Sighting an ice cream parlor up ahead he lead his group there, figuring that should be a comforting enough venue. Entering the store, he ushered his charges into some free booths near the back of the store, to avoid annoying the other patrons too much. <Motoki will kill me if he ever finds out I brought this much business to a competitor.>

The late afternoon was normally a slow time for the Zocalo Ice Cream Parlor. In a few hours once people had dinner and began heading out for a night on the town, things would begin to pick up. But for now, Corwin had but a few customers. Hearing a massive explosion, he instinctively ducked down behind the counter. However, he was far enough away that all he knew about the incident was the large explosion and the rattling of his windows.

Or, that would have been the case if ten minutes later a man wearing armor and escorting a bunch of beat up kids had not entered his shop. At first all he saw was the man, and was wondering why someone would be dressed up in such a crazy outfit. But then he saw the children. He could see the scrapes and bruises on their faces and suddenly realized that this guy must be related to those Sailor Senshi.

Getting up from behind the counter, he followed the group. "How may I help you?" he asked when they had found their seats.

"A cone of their favorite ice-cream or sherbet for each of the kids." Endymion replied. Then thinking about dealing their injuries he added. "Oh and could you bring over a few bowls of warm water. And when you get the chance could you let the police know that I have a busload of children here that need to be picked up. I am not quite sure where they were headed, only that they were attacked."

"Hai," Corwin replied before pulling out a pad of paper to get all the ice-cream orders. <Well so much for this being a nice slow late afternoon.>

With the arrival of the bowls of warm water and the first aid kit he had brought from the bus, Endymion began treating the various injuries. The kids whimpered a bit as he cleaned their wounds and disinfected them, he hated to think what kind of germs might be on a public bus, especially one that frequently carried children. However, the pending arrival of ice cream kept them from putting up too much of a fuss. Thankfully, the children had escaped with only scrapes, some small cuts, and some minor bruises injuries that he was able to treat easily enough. And he had a feeling that by the time their parent's came to pick them up, the kids would have completely forgotten the horrors of the afternoon. Instead, they would only remember the positives, being able to see personally see the Sailor Senshi in action.

Finished with all the kids, he packed up what remained of the first aid kit. Heading up to the counter, he ordered himself an ice-cream soda before settling the tab. He probably could have gotten away without pay for the stuff; he could see the conflicted look in the attendant's eyes when he went to pay the bill. However, he had no problem paying the tab, even though with the couple dozen kids it was a fair bit, so he gave Corwin no chance to object.

Now with everything taken care of, Endymion returned to his charges with his drink in hand and sat down. Now he just had to wait for someone else of authority to take the children. How hard could it be to watch a group of children he thought. Boy was he mistaken. Almost immediately after returning to the table, the questions began. At first, it was simple requests to see his sword and his magic, so he showed them the sword and created a few roses. But then the questions became real; with the children wanting to know why he was now wearing armor instead of the Tuxedo, all about the Sailor Senshi, was Sailor Moon his girlfriend (with strong cootie emphasis on the that last word).

By the time the police finally arrived, he figured that he had told them practically everything he knew about the Sailor Senshi and his past life. Of course, that was not sufficient for them, so he also had to speculate and ponder some aspects of this part of his life. <Who would have guessed that those kids could ask such sophisticated questions? For every silly question they asked, they had a good one that I had never thought about before. We do not give them enough credit for their intelligence. They may have a limited vocabulary, but maybe it's their unfettered imagination that allows them to ask all those questions.>

Walking over to the tunnel, he passed various clean up crews trying to get the road ready for travel again. He found out from one engineer there that the tunnel would likely be closed for the rest of the week, the roadway needed some repairs and they needed time to inspect the tunnel wall to make sure it had not been compromised. He already knew that Usako was gone and from the direction of her pull, she was probably at home and gauging from the feeling of the link asleep as well. Thinking back, a moment he realized that she had been asleep since just before the blast. <Strange.> However, he also knew that she had not been harmed.

Ami sat on a park bench typing away at her computer, playing around with it in an attempt to learn whatever she could. With the aid of her mini-computer, her memories of the Silver Millennium were beginning to come back. Unfortunately some kind of security lockout prevented her from browsing through information, instead she need to specifically request it. This of course made the process of relearning everything she had once known a frustratingly slow process.

Taking a break from her studies, she put down her computer and looked out at the children. Things had been very peaceful at this park, though the children's bus was a little on the late side. An insistent beeping drew her attention back to the computer. Acknowledging the alarm, she frowned as she began to read the various alerts that had suddenly popped up. Furiously typing away, she tried to make sense out of them.

"What's up Ami-chan?" asked Makoto having seen her friend's sudden sour expression that was now deepening.

For a few moments Ami did not respond, however when she did it was not an answer that Mako was expecting. "Henshin, no time to waste." was all that her friend said as she activated her own transformation in the middle of the park.

That caught Makoto's attention and she quickly followed suit and then hurried to catch up with the blue haired warrior. <Hopefully nobody there knew us. Otherwise, our little secret is out. Something must be very wrong, for Ami to be so careless like that.>

As Jupiter pulled up with her friend, Mercury said, "I have already called the others." With a leap, the two of them took to the roofs. "My computer just registered a major explosion of energy that matches Sailor Moon's. I'm not sure of anything else, other than this. The energy that was released was on par with what she used in our last battle, however this time it was an uncontrolled release."

Jupiter gulped when she heard Mercury's explanation. <Not good.>

Within quick succession of each other, the Sailor Senshi arrived on top of a building over looking an entrance to the tunnel. Down below them, ambulances and fire trucks had already arrived on the scene. Dropping to the ground, they moved in amongst the emergency crews. Thankfully, unlike the last time in which Neptune and Uranus had to force their way through, a path was opened for the Sailor Senshi.

Walking in they could not help but to gasp. The walls were charred and sections of the concrete road had been ripped up and flung out of the tunnel. And there near the center of the destruction were two bodies, one on the ground and the other up against a wall. Except for the two still forms, nothing else was still in the tunnel, having been blown out by the blast.

Mercury quickly ran up to the princess who was no longer in her Senshi uniform. Bringing out her computer, she ran some scans. "She is okay, just very drained. Uranus, Neptune can you take Usagi home. ChibiMoon go with them." ChibiMoon tried to protest, but was stopped by the look that Mercury gave her, which gave Neptune all the time she needed to snatch up the little warrior into her arms. Then along with Uranus who was carrying the unconscious princess, the two left.

With that taken care of, Mercury turned to examine Venus. She had known at first glance that Venus was much worse off. She had not wanted ChibiUsa to see Venus and that was one of the reasons why she had gone to Serenity first. The other was that as much as it might hurt to admit it, her first duty was to the princess and then to the others. It did not matter if the princess looked like she was not seriously injured, until she was certain of that she could not be distracted by the injuries of the others. They all knew that, their princess's life came before their own or anyone else, even if Usagi might try to persuade them otherwise.

Deploying her visor, she let her computer do a detailed scan of Venus. This was going to be very tricky, as Venus was not on the ground, but in the wall. The force of the blast had been sufficient to smash her far enough into the wall that she had remained there and had not fallen back out. As her computer finished its analysis, Mercury let out a little sigh of relief. In as much as anything good could be said about Minako's condition, she was still alive and likely to remain that way. Additionally she did not have any serious broken bones, none that would complicate the extrication process.

"Mars go grab me a backboard." Mercury ordered.

Concerned for her friend, Mars quickly left to find a backboard. Unsure of what one even looked like, she headed towards the nearest ambulance. Arriving there, she told them what she needed and then was running back with the ambulance's crew and equipment in tow. She might not have asked for their help, but they knew that if there was an injury serious enough to require a backboard, then they were going to be needed.

When Mars returned with the board, Mercury had Jupiter and Mars hold it up against Venus's back while she began casting spells. Each spell she cast slowly, checking and double-checking her progress with each step. Finally, ten minutes later, she was satisfied.

"Ok, Venus is now secured, you can slowly bring the board down." Mercury instructed. "Ok, good… A bit slower…" the ice warrior instructed as the other four (the two Senshi on the two from the ambulance) lowered the board to the horizontal. A thin sheet of ice covered Venus and attached her to the backboard.

With the unconscious Senshi extricated from the wall, the ambulance crew navigated the board to board with Venus over to the gurney. Moving to secure their patient to the gurney, the sheet of ice covering Venus gave them pause. However, Mercury quickly removed that problem as she waved her hand dissipating the spells. Now once again in familiar territory, the crew began securing the patient and checking her vital signs.

"You just need to stabilize her condition, her other injuries will heal on their own." Mercury stated

The crew nodded their assent, even though they found it hard to believe that the massive burns and abrasions that the warrior had would heal on their own. But that was not their call anyways; their job was to do what they could to stabilize the patient and to get her to the hospital as soon as possible. The doctors there would decide what to do about the other injuries. They were not surprised when that blue warrior joined them in the ambulance.

"Mars, Jupiter you two head on back. You are going to need to keep Serenity from coming after Venus. Plus there is always the possibility that Rubeus may attack." Mercury called out as the doors to the ambulance closed.-End Chapter 24

End Notes: -In an attempt to actually put out something, I have broken this chapter into two parts. These two chapters are currently 40 pages long, though even with this break the next chapter is going to be a long one again. Might end up breaking it up again. The one problem with long chapters is that they take forever to edit. Guess I should review how I wrote the earlier chapters, since I was much better at finding stopping points there. :) -For those wondering about the chapter title it is an inside B5 joke/tribute. You see "Ah hell" is Minbari for "Continuous Fire," as one B5 commander accidentally found out at one point when she muttered that phrase while on the bridge of a White Star. -And for the record Corwin is a reference to Lt Corwin of Babylon 5. And Zocalo refers to the Zocalo marketplace on B5. -Thankfully also finally managed to get those new communicators distributed, only took what a few chapters? -Up next more of the fallout Sailor Moon's imitation of a bomb, and after that its time for Ail and Ann's visit to Earth to come to a head.