Dream World Part 4: Beryl
A Sailor Moon fanfic by Mike Chenoweth [Ultrace@aol.com]
September, 1996
In the heart of the Cherry Blossom Hill Temple, Rei struggled to get to her feet. The blast of energy she had just received probably would have knocked her senseless if not for the anger that was building in her... Anger fueled by the mocking laughter of the one who had struck her down.
Queen Beryl.
Mina helped Rei up. Amy and Lita stood in front of them to block further attacks, but none were coming.
"You see how useless your efforts have been," Beryl told all of them. "Not even the Silver Crystal can stop me now."
"We won't give up. We'll fight you," Rei spat. Even without Serena, they had to keep going.
Beryl laughed again. She watched the orb in front of her that seemed to emanate absolute darkness. "You can do nothing. In moments, I will destroy this world and everything on it. All of us, all of this--" she said, gesturing with her hand to indicate everything around them, "--will be less than a memory. There will be no one left to remember it!"
"No."
The four girls turned around. "Serena?" Mina asked in surprise.
Rei was stunned. "No... Sailor Moon."
Serena didn't acknowledge either of them, only Queen Beryl. The brash confidence she used in her speeches was gone, replaced by a flat sadness in her voice. "You have stolen the joy from my life, and in the name of the Moon, I will destroy you!"
Queen Beryl just laughed as her body dissolved into a pure dark energy that flowed into the orb, which began rapidly pulsating.
Rei opened her mouth to speak but couldn't get any words to come out. Her arms and legs refused to move. Slowly, she felt her essence pulled out of its shell and sent flying from the temple. She could see her body and those of the others from a distance, continually getting smaller. Rei couldn't do anything to help them. She was forced to observe the same scenario that she had seen the night before play itself out again.
The last things Rei saw before the figures became too distant to make out were the Sailor outfits of the Scouts bursting with light into dresses like that of the Moon Princess.
Seconds later, the temple and everything on the grounds went up in a blinding explosion.
------------------
Until the previous night, it had been years since Rei had experienced a nightmare so disturbing that she couldn't go back to sleep; and now it had happened two evenings in a row. Both times it had felt more like a premonition of the future, filled with things that she couldn't understand, rather than a nightmare.
What would Queen Beryl be doing at the temple? Why was Rei so surprised to see Serena show up? She didn't have any answers, but they weren't necessary for her to know that something was very wrong.
Rei's meditation and physical conditioning allowed her to sleep less than most people, but even so the short rest left her unrefreshed. She could only imagine how Amy was going to feel if this had happened to her again. If the others started falling prey to it, they were going to be in a lot of trouble.
It was only a little after one o'clock. This was going to be a long day.
Quietly, she made her way outside to the area where they kept the sacred flame blazing, a separate room that Rei usually had all to herself for meditation. As always, the fire was crackling away; she had built it up only a couple hours earlier.
She knelt in front of the fire and concentrated for several minutes to ease her thoughts. It was difficult to drive the images of the nightmare from her head, but eventually she could feel her heartbeat slow and her mind relax. She opened her eyes, looking into the heart of the flames. "Sacred fire, I ask you to show me who is behind this..."
For almost a minute, nothing happened, but she was in no rush, so she continued to wait. Slowly, the flames began to change, burning brighter in some areas and dimmer in others, forming an image. The man with very light hair and dark eyes was not familiar to her. He stood there, arms crossed, with what could only be described as a confident smile. Rei studied every feature she could make out in the constantly shifting flames.
It was only in her closest studying of the man that she noticed the person behind him. A dark silhouette of almost no detail, except for the apparent outline of long hair and something that left the impression of femininity. Everything else was being hidden from her. Rei concentrated harder and asked the fire for more information, but received nothing new.
Slowly, the images died away. There was no way to be sure of who either of them might be. Hopefully, the flames would reveal more to her later. As she spent the rest of the evening deep in meditation, Rei clung to the one possible clue she had: the ruler of the Negaverse.
There was no meeting planned for the Scouts that day, so Rei headed over to Amy's apartment a little before lunch to see if Amy had also had a repeat of her nightmare.
As she passed Serena's house on the way, Rei wondered whether or not her agreement with Amy to not mention the details of Darian's dream to Serena was fair. Knowing how possessive Serena was of Darian, she'd probably suspect the worst: that he and Zoisite had some sort of love affair a thousand years earlier. Nothing short of the full truth would drive the suspicion from her mind once it took root.
Of course it was completely innocent, and Serena deserved to know that instead of eating herself up with worry. Darian had said that he wanted to be the one to explain it to her--Rei just hoped that he did so soon. The entire situation had burdened Serena during their meeting like the weight of the world was on her shoulders, and she wasn't likely to get better with time.
Rei walked up and knocked on the front door of Amy's apartment. A few moments later, Amy answered, looking every bit as miserable as Rei expected. Her eyes were slightly bloodshot and her hair was almost in a state of disarray. "Again?" Rei asked.
Amy nodded. "Come on in." She got herself and Rei some ice water from the kitchen and the two of them went into the living room.
"Since my time last night wasn't particularly occupied with sleeping, I started some research into these dreams we've been having," Amy said. She gestured to half a dozen large books on the living room table.
"You mean nightmares," Rei corrected. She picked up one of the smaller books and started leafing through it absently.
"Actually, they're pretty much the same thing. Nightmares are literally bad dreams. The only technical difference between the two, perhaps, is that a nightmare tends to rouse someone from their sleep, whereas most dreams, apart from extremely intense ones, don't."
Rei considered herself corrected. "Did you find anything interesting?" she asked, looking at a graph of brainwave patterns under various periods of sleep and not making any sense of it. She flipped forward some more.
"Well, if these books are to be believed, then my dream seems to be a manifestation of one of my deepest fears, although that doesn't come as much of a surprise. They weren't much help for your dream or Molly's, except to say that those could be latent desires."
Rei shook her head. "Maybe Molly wants to be a Sailor Scout or something, but there's nothing in my nightmare that I want to see happen. And what about Darian?"
"I don't think that his having these dreams at the same time as us is coincidence, but since his dream is a recovered memory and not something created by his subconscious, we can't learn much from it," Amy said. She looked at the scattered books. "They weren't written with the intent of being used against the Negaverse, I'm afraid."
Rei put down the book she was looking at and searched for one that she might have a hope of understanding. "So basically, we're on our own. As always." She opened the book she had grabbed, expecting to see more lists of sleeping disorders and methods of treatment, but was mildly surprised to find herself looking at a picture of a human chest in the middle of some sort of operation. She flipped through the pages, and found nothing that even remotely looked like it had to do with dreams. "Huh. What's this?" Rei asked, turning the picture to Amy.
Amy had been taking a drink of her water and not paying attention to what book Rei picked up. She suddenly looked extremely uncomfortable. "I was just reading that... To try and understand my dream a little better..." she said, and paused for a few uneasy moments, apparently deciding whether or not to explain. "Twice now I've had that same dream... They bring her in and she just lies there, bleeding and dying, and I can't help her at all. But if I can drill what I need to know into my head, maybe I can do something about it in the dream..."
Whoever was doing this to them probably had complete control over these dreams, Rei knew, and Amy had to have known it too. `For her to even try something as farfetched as this--she must be desperate,' Rei thought. "You want to talk about it?"
"No," Amy said. She smiled. "But thanks anyway."
"I understand. I wouldn't want to talk about mine, either, but I think it's important. Last night, and the night before, in my nightmare, before the temple exploded... We were fighting Queen Beryl."
"Are you sure?" Amy asked, in a worried tone.
"Uh-huh. We only got a glimpse of her all that time ago, but I'll never forget that face." Rei shuddered. "When I couldn't go back to sleep, I went to the fire and asked for guidance. It showed me two people I've never seen before. There was a man wearing some kind of regal-looking suit. Behind him was a shadow that I sensed was a woman."
Amy predicted Rei's conclusion. "You think that woman is Queen Beryl?"
"It makes sense. The nightmare felt more like a vision of the future than anything else. I'm not a master of reading the fire yet, but the imagery seemed clear enough. Whoever she is, she's powerful enough to hide herself from the flames and she's probably controlling that man."
Amy was lost in thought for a few moments. "That suit you mentioned--did it look anything like the uniforms that Jedite and the others wore?"
"Sort of, but at the same time, no. It looked like it was more flashy than functional."
"If Queen Beryl is back somehow, then we're all in a lot of danger. We need to let the others know about this," Amy said, bringing her hand to her head. "After I take some aspirin."
With Serena's house close by, and Lita's not far from it, Rei and Amy decided to call a meeting there. Mina's place was a couple miles away, but that turned out to be unimportant, because they couldn't reach Mina on her communicator anyway. Artemis finally answered.
"She's not here," he said. "She went to the mall with Brian and must have left her communicator behind."
"Left it behind?" Rei echoed, incredulous. Mina could be a little airheaded sometimes, but still... "That's not like her at all."
"I'm starting to get worried about her. She says she's not having these dreams, but she tossed and turned so much last night she was practically in a sweat," Artemis said, his concern showing. "And she's acting strange--she almost bit my head off when I tried to warn her again about Brian."
"If she is having these dreams," Amy began, "then it's no surprise that she's not herself. But what do you mean about Brian?"
Artemis looked put out. "She says I'm jealous, but I know there's something strange about him. I just can't put my finger on it. He seems nice enough, but... I don't know."
"Could he be a servant for whoever is doing all this?" Rei asked no one in particular. "Sounds like a great way to get some info on us if they somehow know that Mina is a Sailor Scout."
"Or an easy way to eliminate her," Amy said, instantly drawing a worried look from Rei.
`She left her communicator behind today. Coincidence?' Rei wondered. "We'd better get down there. I've got a bad feeling about this."
The two of them broke into a run, heading for the mall.
Mina and Brian entered one of several dress stores on the second floor. He had been gently and subtly guiding her in that direction since they came into the mall. She hadn't noticed.
"You know, Mina, the Spring Dance is coming up soon," he said.
Mina did not know, in fact. She hadn't been to one of the school dances in years. It was one of many old habits that died when Sailor V was born. "Uh-huh," she said, somewhat absently.
"Would you allow me to take you to it?" he asked plainly.
Mina was stunned. She had thought he was just making casual conversation. They'd only known each other for a few days, and the dance was two months away, but she wasn't about to pass up an opportunity like this. "That would be great!" she said.
Brian smiled for a moment, and then the smile vanished to be replaced by a more serious look. He glanced around, obviously checking to make sure they were alone. "There's something else I want to tell you," he said.
Mina was confused. Judging from his expression, if he hadn't just asked her to the dance, she would have been sure he was about to tell her that he didn't want to see her anymore. "Go ahead," she said.
"You're someone really special," Brian said. Mina smiled. He continued. "I can tell you're different from everyone else. I--"
He was interrupted by a scream coming from several stores away. They both ran out just in time to see a saleswoman get thrown through the window of her store, landing a few feet from its entrance. From inside the store, everyone in the mall could hear an inhuman roar.
Brian looked at Mina. "You'd better find some security people and get them over here. I'll try to help her."
"Yeah," Mina said. She wouldn't have agreed to let him go near the store except that she knew she wouldn't be finding security at all. Sailor Venus would show up before Brian could put himself in any danger. She looked around the corner of the dress store, and found she was in luck. They were near one of the emergency hall exits. Mina stepped in, transformed, and ran back out almost in one motion.
Brian had courageously helped the saleswoman get to a safe distance from the store by the time Mina arrived. She could easily see the monster inside now: A gigantic centipede-like monstrosity, at least ten feet long, with a human looking torso that sported four arms. It didn't look like the kind of monster that drained energy--more like the kind that killed people.
Mina started to call the others and saw that she'd taken off her communicator when she was getting ready to meet Brian. `Of all the times to forget the thing...' she said to herself.
"Venus Crescent Beam Smash!" she yelled, pointing with one finger. When the beam hit the monster in the side, it dropped all the gems and jewelry it had been busily grabbing and turned to face her.
`No effect?' She thought. The only other thing she could do was try to slow the monster down and hope that help showed up soon. This would be tricky. "Venus Love Chain Entangle!"
The chain of linked hearts wrapped tight around the centipede's upper segments, just a few inches too low to snare its arms. She tried, unsuccessfully, to pull it off-balance before discovering that it was much heavier and stronger than she was. It pulled back with all its strength, yanking her off her feet and swinging her across the room before she could let go of the chain.
She slammed back first into one of the walls and slumped down against it. Before she had a chance to get her bearings, the centipede followed up its attack by smacking her with its tail end, throwing her against the wall a second time and into unconsciousness.
"Mina!" Brian shouted from inside the doorway. The worry in his face shifted to rage. The centipede turned and looked at him, suddenly gibbering in fear. It was desperately looking for a means of escape, but there was none.
Brian glared at the monster and held out his hand. As though he were crushing a can, he clenched his fist. Writhing and howling in agony, the centipede disintegrated, segment by segment, into piles of dust.
Amy and Rei had only been searching the mall for about five minutes when they heard a bellowing that seemed to echo through the entire building. Both of them knew as soon as they heard that it had something to do with Mina, and hoped they weren't too late. They found a deserted spot to quickly change into Sailor Mercury and Sailor Mars.
They followed the direction of the noise and soon saw that a crowd of people was slowly gathering around a store whose window was smashed out. There was no monster inside, only a long trail of the white dust usually left behind by one. What caught their attention, though, was the figure on the floor, and who was holding her in his arms.
"Oh, no... Mina..." Rei said to herself, gently enough that only Amy heard her. The two pushed their way through the crowd to a boy who matched Mina's description of Brian, although neither of them were paying much notice to him at that moment; there was something more important on their minds.
He looked relieved to see the Scouts approach. "Sailor Venus was hurt by that monster before she destroyed it."
Amy kneeled down to examine Mina. "I think she's okay, just stunned," she told Rei.
Mina opened her eyes and found herself looking at Amy--no, Sailor Mercury. She was being supported, however, by Brian. "Where... Where am I?" she asked.
"In the mall," Amy told her. "It's okay, the monster's gone."
People had been trickling back into the store, and were beginning to surround the four of them. Rei turned and managed to drive them back with some authoritative shouts and what might have been considered a thinly-veiled threat about fire. When some of the security had finally shown up, Rei began explaining the situation.
"What happened?" Mina asked.
"You beat the monster, but judging from the dents in this wall, you must have been thrown against it pretty hard in the process," Amy said.
"I don't remember."
Amy wondered if Mina might have a concussion or if this was just merely case of shock. "We'd better get you to a hospital."
Mina struggled to focus. The last thing she needed was to spend a few days in the hospital. "I'm okay," she said, trying to get to her feet.
Amy helped her up, and found that Mina could walk steadily with only a minimum of assistance. Her coordination and vision didn't seem impaired, but without a proper examination they couldn't be sure. "Well, let's go just in case," Amy said.
"I'm fine!" Mina snapped.
Amy decided not to press the matter any further at the moment. She turned to the boy, almost as an afterthought. "Are you okay?" He didn't appear hurt, and Amy's attention had been so focused on Mina, it hadn't crossed her mind to ask earlier.
"Yeah, thanks to her. She saved my life," the boy said. Mina smiled weakly.
Rei had finished talking to the five or so security guards who were starting to take statements from the crowd. She returned to Amy, and the two of them helped Mina out of the mall as a guard approached the boy.
Upon arriving home, Mina collapsed onto her bed, exhausted from the ordeal, and went to sleep. Rei and Amy explained everything that had happened to Artemis, and they all agreed to postpone their meeting until the following day.
