“Luna, there is an epicentre of energy here. We should be able to follow it to Xalia, and to Uraki-Ayo." She turned and gestured for them to follow as she proceeded warily forth. The going, uneasy, anxious, fearful, but swift, sure, and well lit.
The great tunnels gave way to a cathedral, which seemed to have no ceremony in the transition. The fourteen foot walls contained no more than ionic columns, and great venomous statues of what appeared to be the five Inner Senshi. It was to their disdain that they had been portrayed as villains within the NegaVerse's society. To Ami it came as no surprise: 'We have defeated them at every turn. How easy it must be to paint us as such witless creatures - more power than brains,' she began. 'Give them an image, and they will hate.'
They regarded the statues for a time. It wasn't that the renditions were not attractive; it was, rather, that they were much too. They were presented as scantily clad, overzealous, and excessively passionate - and physically proportioned - creatures who didn't seem to care much what it was they were doing, as long as they were doing something destructive.
It was enough to turn the stomach, Minako admitted.
'We shouldn't stop,' Usagi stated. There were several nods. For some minutes they travelled in uncomfortable silence.
'Usagi,' Artemis quested. 'Should we return - afterwards?'
'No!' she snapped, whirling to face him abruptly. 'No. That won't… Just get Xalia back home. Heal her, then help the Neo Senshi. I have a feeling they'll need it.'
His replied nod was solemn.
@~%~~~
'They come,' her voice resounded sharply from the pulsing multi-hued walls.
'Hai, my Queen.'
'Is that all? You hold now the power within you to shatter the very essence of life. And that is all you offer?'
'I have so little to offer, my Queen. Forcing them to witness the death of the girl will only slight emotions.'
'Precisely. It will force them to expend valuable energy. Do it… face them, and disperse their "champion"…' she laughed, an echoing, throaty thing that chilled the soul to the core.
@~%~~~
'Wait!' she stopped, spreading her arms. 'I sense something!'
A flickering multifaceted figure washed into their reality. He gazed at Usagi ominously.
'I consider it most remarkable that I should face you in this manner. While I have watched you, and known your trials, deserved though they may be, it is most amazing to me that you have become a threat to my success. Your will for survival impresses me. As does hers.' A battered, bloodied and nude winged young woman blurred into focus before them. 'She represents but a silver of the cost…'
Xalia's eyes snapped open in fatigued horror as a dozen white motes fluttered about her body, which slowly drew itself into transparency.
'I'm suh-sorry Usa-sa-gi…' heaved between ragged breaths.
'Senshi!' Usagi charged. 'Unite!'
A vibrant aura of tranquil energy gripped the five angelic warriors, while a tendril like mass sought Xalia's jerking form. Uraki-Ayo uttered a gasp, tensing as he realized they were interceding!
'Impossible!'
'No. Nothing is. Haven't you learned that by now?' Usagi hissed. Xalia fell forward into Rei's open arms as the dark force released her. All but the most severe damage had been repaired in a tremulous instant.
'You are out of your league, foe,' Makoto declared assuredly.
'We shall see!' he roared quietly as he retreated. 'Come! Waste no more! We will end it!'
Usagi squinted, affixing the source in her mind, waving for Luna and Artemis to depart.
"We can't leave the Princess now,' Luna pined to Artemis. 'We may never see her again!'
Usagi halted and turned, the chord struck within an earnest, fearsome thing. 'Luna, it is a matter of duty. Xalia is dying!' she gently, but urgently replied.
Luna was respectfully silent. She bowed deeply, then, grasping hands with Artemis, who held Xalia, was gone.
The darkness failed to bother her. It was their presence. Overwhelming, the stench of them, the rigorous earthy odor. The cold, wet, and clammy lengths of snake-like flesh prodded her, caressed her intimately, roaming across her exposed breasts…
'N-ya! Taruko-kun! Help!!' she wailed in fragrant Japanese to her earless tormentors.
"Hold her!" a voice commanded sternly. "I du'na know what she be fightin', but she'll make it mighty worse in a blink!"
Artemis took hold of her left wing and arm while Demelza held her legs, and Luna seized the remaining limbs. Each struggled against her thrashing mutant-augmented strength. The moist muscles drew taut at her wrists and ankles, pulling them apart. Fear drove, tears sprang, strength peaked… Artemis, Luna, and Demelza found themselves slumped in painful heaps as Xalia's superhuman strength threw them like rag dolls against the nearest walls. Demelza groaned, feeling a numbness running through her shoulder blades. Her prosthetic lower leg bellowed in rising spikes of flaring pain at her. She staggered numbly to her feet, leaning heavily upon the table on which the patient tossed.
There was only one answer.
Xalia! The innately skilled training healer fell back in utter horror, then stumbled forward and regurgitated in gasping heaves.
"Dem-chan!" Luna cried. "Are you okay?"
"In her m-mind," Demelza stammered in a rasping voice, eyes clenched shut, hands jammed against her body in a defensive posture. "In her mind…"
"What? What's happening to her?" Artemis quested fearfully.
The two lovers' eyes set upon Xalia's shifting figure, and indeed, she twisted to avoid something it was plain she could not, her mouth gaping open, knees spread, hands laying as if pinned in place.
"What?" Luna breathed, her chest heaving as she gasped against her own tears, knowing she was needed, and struggling to restrain them. Artemis held his stony silence, a mix of anger and puzzlement upon his hard, angular features. Demelza slowly rose, her face scarlet by her fearsome sympathy, her mouth dry and sour. She glanced at Luna, who shook her head, indicating that she understood well enough. Artemis, despite his solid founding, admitted a lack thereof with a softening of his rigid features.
Demelza took his hand and placed it upon the girl's sweating forehead.
Reality took a powder.
Xalia, pinned down by innumerable lengths of tubular flesh, shuddered and screamed at the incomprehensible sexual assault. The knotting about her breasts, the movement between her taut thighs. Artemis retreated his hand and staggered back, a cold, dark creature in his gut.
"How can we help her?"
"By pullin'er from the mem'ry," Demelza fumed. "I need ya t' help me Artemis. Luna, I need you to watch 'er… if ya can't feel 'er pulse, then I need ya t' bring us out."
"How?"
"Slap me. Hard. This is more important than a bruise 'er two." Luna could not mistake the seriousness of the instruction, and so she nodded understanding. Demelza was firm, and said, "If I don't come to first time, y'must hit me again. Got it? I'm the anchor, an' we'll have plenty o' trouble if I don' wake from the trance."
"Hai," Luna said resolutely.
Demelza had experience, fortunately. The trick was to make yourself immune to the threat. Easy for a well-trained psychic. Flying was a new experience, one she could dare become accustomed to. The force barriers, on the other hand, took a bit of work, though they proved to ward the attacking creature without fail. At least, until they had to retrieve Xalia's psionic core.
Xalia! she called. The young woman's demeaned groans were shut out by the trained healer's psychic reflexes. Being so close, forget hearing the event, had Demelza exceedingly nervous as was. Xalia was literally overwhelmed. Trembling of body, stammering of will, she approached with fear of similar experience. Then, all at once, rage collected, she, in one motion retracted her barrier and grabbed Xalia's dislocated right arm. As she did…
… Luna gasped, catching the limp robed form of the young English healer.
"Demelza?"
Demelza blinked, then felt her eyes gradu
ally wandering open.
"Hai. Xalia, is she…?"
"Calm," Artemis reported, rubbing the back of his head as he recovered his footing.
"Good. Get my herb satchel, hurry!" Without undue prompting, Luna was gone. Demelza took hold of Xalia's shoulder and relocated it with a deft, dull crack. "Grab that blanket."
Artemis' hand moved without direction. Demelza began tearing the scraps of Xalia's clothes from her badly brutalized body.
"Demelza, may I ask…"
"What?" she replied distractedly.
"Why that? It was so difficult for Luna to heal from the pain of her assault. With this… I cannot imagine." He watched the white blanket slipped over Xalia's nude form, noting the dislocation of her hips.
"You are a man, you never could."
"I felt her thoughts…" he replied defensively.
"An' that means what? Artemis, there be naught to squall over here. You are a good, trustworthy man. Yours is a blessed marriage."
"Thank you, Dem-chan."
"As for the…" she hesitated a half instant. "I said it t'was mem'ry, aye? Obviously what he did to her."
"Uraki-Ayo."
"Aye. I've had the misfortune to see this b'fore. Re-triggerin' the mem'ry does more damage, if ya gather my meanin'."
Artemis expressed further lack of understanding.
"Artemis, this was real. Only two things keep 'er alive: Her Knighthood, and the power of your angel friend Usagi."
"But what about her betrayal?"
"What of it? 'Er heart remain'd strong and pure. I guess," Demelza paused, her expression stern as she prepared a rich, foul smelling salve from the materials at hand, "someone up there decided she should live."
"So he put her back in the memory in a final effort to crush her spirit," Luna noted angrily as she placed the herbs in front of Demelza.
She only nodded. "Now… enough chatter. I want you to fetch Hysian, and Luna, use your best psionic healing tricks. She'll never have kids if we don' get crackin'…"
Chapter 47
Assault Within